Pashinyan may soon declare himself the new Catholicos of All Armenians
With each passing day, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan is causing further damage to the Armenian Apostolic Church and the reputation of Armenia around the world as the first Christian nation. His actions are a gross violation of the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia.
Without any authority, Pashinyan outlined last week on his Facebook page a “Road map for the renewal of the Holy Armenian Apostolic Church.” He indicated that “after removal” of Catholicos Karekin II, the “primary task” of the future locum tenens is “to organize the process of adopting the new regulations of the Apostolic Church in Armenia.”
Pashinyan even provided detailed steps for his suggested “new Church regulations”:
- Rules for the good conduct of the clergy and guarantees for its implementation.
- Financial transparency of the Church and guarantees for its implementation.
- The necessity for the Church to be apolitical and guarantees for its implementation.
- Compliance of the Church with Armenia’s tax regulations. Taxes paid by the Church will be returned to the Church.
- Clergy to benefit from the government pension fund and health insurance.
- Election of a new Catholicos of All Armenians on the basis of the new rulebook.
To make his interference in the Church complete, Pashinyan suggested that, at the request of the locum tenens, the government “will provide advisory support to the work on the development of the draft [Church] rules.”
During his visit to Berlin last week, Pashinyan denigrated the Armenian Church and the Catholicos in front of the prestigious German Council on Foreign Relations. Disseminating internal Armenian disputes to an international audience is a grave error and contrary to Armenia’s best interests.
Pashinyan raised several inappropriate church-related issues in Germany.
- He accused the clergy, not just the Catholicos, of being “more vulnerable to external influence and, forgive me for phrasing it this way, can turn them into a tool for external influence.” The prime minister has hurled this serious accusation at various members of the clergy, including the Catholicos. Pashinyan even told the Armenian Parliament last week that the Catholicos obeys “a senior lieutenant of a foreign intelligence service” and reports “daily to lieutenants of a foreign intelligence service.” However, Justice Minister Srbuhi Galyan contradicted her boss by saying that she has no such information. Pashinyan’s baseless claim goes beyond the issue of the moral behavior of the clergy. Being a foreign agent is a serious violation of Armenian law. If Pashinyan has any evidence, he has the obligation to submit it to the courts for prosecution. Making such a charge without any evidence is libelous, for which the Catholicos should sue Pashinyan.
- Pashinyan told the German audience: “No one knows how our Church is funded, how much money is entering, how it is spent.” Since the government knows about the personal lives of the clergy, then it surely knows the amounts and sources of those funds.
- Pashinyan went on to condemn “some of the leaders of the clergy” for living “in shameful luxury, while some ordinary clergy live in poverty.” If this is true, it is none of the prime minister’s or the government’s business. Once again, he is violating the constitutional provision separating Church and State.
- Pashinyan spoke about the need to reform the Church, even though he has no right to interfere in internal church affairs. The Church has its own established procedures for dealing with such matters. The prime minister’s main responsibility is running the government; he has no authority or mandate to reform the Church. As a Church member, he can express his personal opinion, but he has gone far beyond that. He initiated a whole campaign to depose the Catholicos, proposed specific Church reforms, denigrated the clergy and imprisoned several high-ranking clergymen.
Last week, Pashinyan made another bizarre suggestion on his Facebook page. He wants church choirs to sing the national anthem of the Republic of Armenia “in all churches, at 10:55 a.m., right before celebrating Mass.” By saying “all churches,” it is not clear if he is including the Armenian Catholic and Evangelical churches. He also did not clarify if he is including Armenian Apostolic Churches outside Armenia. One can imagine the hostile reaction of the Turkish government should the choirs of Armenian churches in Istanbul sing the Armenian, not the Turkish, national anthem.
If Pashinyan is such a nationalist and a faithful follower of the Armenian Church, why does he not start his weekly cabinet meetings with the national anthem and a prayer? Why doesn’t his parliamentary majority open each session with the national anthem and a prayer? I suggest that before Pashinyan starts ordering the Church what to do, he should institute those changes in his own government.
In a follow-up video on his Facebook page, Pashinyan suggested that “the placement of the tricolor flag at the entrance or inside the churches of the Republic of Armenia should be discussed.” Pashinyan not only wants to change the Catholicos, but also what the choir should sing in the Church and what flag it should display. This is a completely unwarranted interference in internal Church affairs. He should concentrate on his real job — running the government — which he has miserably failed to do.
Prime Minister Pashinyan, a man who cannot even manage a doghouse, may soon declare himself the next Catholicos of All Armenians.
Who would have thought that the Armenian Apostolic Church would be persecuted in an independent Armenia? Even the discrimination and harassment the Armenian Patriarchates in Jerusalem and Istanbul endure from Israeli and Turkish officialdom respectively, are starting to pale in comparison to Pashinyan’s harassment of the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin and with the arrests of its clergy. What is additionally disgusting, is that Pashinyan’s attempt to purge and control the Church, is applauded and “defended” by his equally unpatriotic supporters (also here shamelessy by them in the comment sections), and worse, is supported by Turkey and Azerbaijan, who portray the Armenian Apostolic Church as “religious fanatics” and as an “obstacle” to “peace” (in Turkish/Azerbaijani doublespeak meaning “Armenia’s surrender”). They are all in cahoots, in order to destroy every patrotic opposition to Pashinyan’s neverending appeasement of Azerbaijan and Turkey and to Armenia becoming a puppet state of them.
Mr. Sassounian gets his nickers in a twist over a Facebook post, as if the Armenian National Assembly (or the Church) adopts its agenda from Pashinyan’s FB account. One wonders why permission to voice one’s personal views is a one-way street in Mr. Sassounian’s world: it’s verboden for Pashinyan to post his views on the Church, but HH Karekin II is free to support a bishop who led a movement to remove the PM from his position. Double-standard?
In case anyone is keeping track, national Churches all around the world are used as political tools. The Armenian Church is no exception, which I would guess came as no surprise to anyone in Germany, the home of Martin Luther. What we’re seeing today in Armenia is the aligning of criticism and backlash against Etchmiadzin from two fronts: internal and external.
There has been enduring and widespread disapproval of HH Karekin II’s tenure, both lay and clerical, particularly post March 1, 2008. Movements against the Vehapar occurred under Serge Sargsyan’s regime, but these didn’t take root for two reasons: first, the Vehapar had strong backing of the Armenian government; and second, there was not yet enough public “experience” with HH Karekin II’s autocratic tenure, particularly his flippant and unwarranted defrockings, his exiles of clergy who would not toe his line, and his aloofness toward his worldwide flock (perhaps with the exception of wealthy Diasporan benefactors). Pashinyan was more reserved on these matters until recently, though he was certainly poorly disposed toward the Vehapar’s leadership and influence on the Church.
Pashinyan’s attitude of HH Karekin II underwent a transition over the past 18 months or so. The major factors were internal (the “Holy Struggle,” overtly supported by the Vehapar, which called for a change of government even by violent means) and external (the influence operations on the Ukrainian, Georgian, and Moldovan Churches, especially the recent Moldovan election fiasco where the Orthodox Church actively campaigned for the “apparatchik” candidate).
Now, if Pashinyan were like his illustrious predecessors, he would exploit, rather than expose, the embarrassing and immoral rumors, videos, recordings, etc of top clergymen. We must give him credit that he did not choose this path. Instead, reading the internal discontent among Armenian Church clergy and laity, and putting himself at risk of criticism for “persecuting the Church” (something which many here do with ironic relish), he launched calls to cleanse and reform the Church. These two factors speak against the theory that Pashinyan is angling for influence over the Church for his own political career.
Only the Lord knows the heart of men, but we can judge by actions. Some of his steps have been crude (that bit about showing his own “bits” to verify his authenticity) and ignorant (especially regarding ecclesiastical and liturgical protocols [nobody who respects the sacraments of the Church should address the Vehapar by his baptismal name, and no one performing Divine Liturgy should omit the name of the Vehapar, who especially needs our prayers and God’s mercy]) , but Pashinyan is not showing an inclination toward controlling the Church. One hopes that he understands 20th century Armenian history enough to know what a grievous sin against the Church it would be to assign a new Catholicos where one doesn’t belong.
Let’s not forget that the Vehapar is also facing criticism from inside the Church from his own high-ranking clergy down to the village priests (who indeed live in poverty while other “favored” clergy live poshly despite their vows). These gentlemen and their families also have much to lose personally as the mudslinging escalates between clergy. It’s about time we all said “enough is enough.”
The facts we have in front of us point to both internal and external efforts to confront well-known sins and cleanse the Armenian Church from worldly influences. The beneficiaries of such cleansing would be the Armenian Nation – both in Armenia and in the Diaspora – which has gone far too long without a true Shepherd in Etchmiadzin and without the Gospel of Jesus Christ at its heart. I personally hope the cleansing doesn’t stop at Etchmiadzin.
@Zaven Kalayjian
The Catholicos is not infallible, the clergy and the Armenian Apostolic Church are not beyond reproach and criticism. However, Pashinyan’s allegations against the Church are baseless, and he has instigated a persecution and a hostile takeover campaign against them, simply because they “dared” to criticise his disastrous and detrimental policies on Artsakh, in Armenia, his dictatorial tendencies and his corruption, his constant appeasement of Azerbaijan and Turkey, among many other things. Pashinyan has an agenda and a vendetta against this institution and its clergy, including Karekin II, not only because they have criticised him, also because he regards them as the biggest opposition and threat to himself. He wants to silence any opposition to himself, whether it is the Armenian Apostolic Church, opposition political parties and politicians, independent media, NGOs, etc. The Church puts up the biggest patriotic opposition against Pashinyan’s misrule and capitulation, and that is why he wants to purge and silence them. And by default, he is doing the dirty work as a satrap of his Turkish and Azerbaijani overlords, of emasculating Armenia. Simple as that. This guy and his misdeeds are indefensible.
Bless you, you have spoken with truth, Allah razı olsun senden