YEREVAN — Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has come under increasing scrutiny from legal and constitutional experts following his recent statements calling for changes in the leadership of the Armenian Apostolic Church. Observers and legal analysts argue that such actions may contradict constitutional norms, undermine the Church’s autonomy and pose potential threats to Armenia’s national identity and security.
The controversy has intensified following Pashinyan’s involvement with the newly convened Armenian Apostolic Church Reform Council. According to a statement from the Prime Minister’s office, the council held its inaugural session to discuss the main directions of the Church’s reform process, the organizational steps required and the scope of upcoming work, based on the principles and objectives outlined in its founding declaration. The council emphasized that the process would adhere to principles of inclusivity, public trust, transparency and accountability, while also prioritizing the strengthening of cooperation between clergy and laity.
The council further welcomed the decision of Archimandrite Gusan Aljanyan, acting head of the Swiss Armenian Diocese, who joined the Church’s reform declaration and roadmap. Aljanyan is expected to participate in future sessions. During the first meeting, council members discussed concrete actions to ensure the smooth implementation of the reform roadmap and adopted decisions necessary to facilitate the process.
While Pashinyan frames these engagements as part of a reform initiative, constitutional and legal experts warn that his public involvement and calls for changes in Church leadership risk violating the Armenian Constitution and national laws protecting religious freedom. Article 17 of the Constitution explicitly guarantees that “the freedom of activities of religious organizations shall be guaranteed in the Republic of Armenia” and that “religious organizations shall be separate from the State.” Article 18 recognizes the exclusive mission of the Armenian Apostolic Holy Church as a national church, highlighting its role in the spiritual life of the Armenian people, the development of national culture and the preservation of national identity.
Further protections are outlined in the Armenian law on Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations, which explicitly safeguard the Church’s independence. Article 6 confirms that the Armenian Apostolic Church and other religious organizations operate according to their own governance, membership and property structures. Article 17 states that the Church is separated from the state, prohibiting the government from compelling citizens to adopt any religion, interfering in the lawful activities or internal governance of religious organizations, or placing state representatives within Church structures to influence operations.
Concerns over Pashinyan’s actions intensified after a large public rally he organized on Jan. 6. Reports from Armat Media indicate that approximately 2,600 participants attended. Analysis using specialized artificial intelligence tools identified roughly 500 attendees as government-affiliated party officials, 500 police officers from Yerevan and regional departments, about 200 from the National Security Service and security personnel and approximately 70 drivers of government vehicles. Workers from companies owned by Civil Contract party member Khachatur Sukiasyan also participated. The remaining estimated 1,000 participants were ordinary citizens brought from various regions.
By comparison, the same day saw more than 200,000 worshippers participated in Christmas liturgies across Armenia and the Armenian Diaspora on the same day, conducted according to traditional protocol with the Patriarch’s name mentioned in full. Experts note that the rally represented only about 0.5 percent of the total faithful, yet the participants publicly advocated for “reforming” the Church — a move widely seen as politically motivated intervence in the Church’s internal governance.
Legal experts stress that Pashinyan’s public engagement with the Reform Council, commentary on internal Church matters and advocacy for leadership changes appear to contravene constitutional and statutory protections. By involving himself in Church’s internal affairs, Pashinyan is undermining the legal autonomy of a national religious institution and challenging a constitutionally protected pillar of Armenian national identity. Observers note that this represents not just a legal issue, but a broader threat to national cohesion and security, given the historical and cultural centrality of the Armenian Apostolic Church.
The delicate balance between the Armenian state and its national Church is enshrined in the Constitution and national laws to safeguard its spiritual, cultural and societal role. Pashinyan’s engagement with the Reform Council — regardless of stated intentions — has prompted debate about the limits of executive power, the protection of religious freedom and the preservation of the Church’s historic role in Armenian identity.
Speaking at the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin on Jan. 6, Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) member and “Armenia” parliamentary alliance deputy Artur Khachatryan criticized the Prime Minister’s actions.
Khachatryan described the Church as a historically non-political institution, emphasizing that Pashinyan’s efforts represent an unprecedented attempt to politicize its internal affairs. He noted that he personally visited political prisoners Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan on Dec. 31 and Archbishop Mikayel Ajapahyan two days earlier. Responding to questions about whether imprisoned clerics have access to religious ceremonies, Khachatryan stated that Archbishop Ajapahyan was prevented from participating in one liturgy.
Regarding Pashinyan’s Jan. 6 rally, Khachatryan described the event as a political performance rather than a genuine religious observance. He alleged that the demonstration relied on coercion, with civil servants, teachers, preschool and community workers, and large numbers of uniformed and plainclothes police officers mobilized to ensure participation, effectively creating an orchestrated display rather than voluntary civic engagement.
Amid the turmoil, Archbishop Ajapahyan, detained for 195 days, issued a statement condemning the disruptions. Opening with the traditional greeting, “Christ is born and revealed,” Ajapahyan said that Christmas should be celebrated in prayer and gratitude, but recent actions by “traitors and oppressors” with armed supporters have disturbed the peace of the Holy Church under the guise of reform.
He drew a parallel with biblical times, comparing contemporary actors to Herod and Herodias, seeking innocent blood for their agendas. He warned that those claiming to promote “good governance” are instead operating in ignorance, compounding their own moral failings. Highlighting recent armed incidents in Yerevan and Talin, Ajapahyan underscored that the Church has endured similar challenges throughout history and will continue its mission according to God’s will, not the designs of morally bankrupt actors.
Representative of the ARF Shirak Regional Committee and member of the “Armenia” parliamentary Alliance Mher Melkonyan also criticized what he described as systematic attempts by the current government to undermine the independence of the Armenian Apostolic Church.
Melkonyan wrote that the government, under Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, has engaged in coordinated actions aimed at restricting the Church’s autonomy and, in effect, seizing control of its institutions. He noted that some individuals involved in this process have abandoned their vows and responsibilities, becoming tools for the government’s political agenda.
“This is no longer a series of isolated incidents or statements,” Melkonyan emphasized.
Melkonyan argued that the government’s efforts reflect a broader pattern in which failures in foreign policy, security and socio-economic management are accompanied by attempts to control the last remaining independent platforms, including public discourse, national memory and spiritual institutions. He described political pressures on both the Armenian Apostolic Church and the Catholicos of All Armenians as part of this broader strategy.
“Throughout its history, the Armenian Apostolic Church has fulfilled functions that the state often could not: preserving national unity, identity and continuity,” Melkonyan said. “Any political intrusion into the Church’s affairs should therefore be regarded not as an ideological debate, but as a direct threat to national security.”
He further reminded that the Church has historically withstood pressures from empires, authoritarian rulers, external enemies and internal betrayal. “Governments come and go, regimes collapse, but the Church remains, as a guarantor of the nation’s continuity and identity. Today’s political pressures and anti-national attempts will share the same fate. No temporary government can seize what has been shaped by the faith, historical rights and will of the people.”
Melkonyan concluded: “Betrayal — whether political or spiritual — will never be forgiven by the people or by history.”
Time for all Armenians to gather around the Church.
Pashinyan is a traitor.
PM Pashinyan knew, from the early stages of his crusade directed against the Armenian Apostolic Church (AAC), that silencing the leadership of the Church will not be a walk in the park, and definitely victory will not be achieved by relying strictly on derogatory opinions voiced from his Facebook page. Only an all-out war with AAC will conquer the enemy of the State, and create a “New Church” compliant with his instructions while being fully committed to respecting the will of Azerbaijan’s Petro-Dictator Aliyev.
The dirty methods adopted by Pashinyan to annihilate the leadership of the AAC did not escape the attention of the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention (LIPG). In a scathing report titled “Statement on the Suppression of the Armenian Apostolic Church: Historical Continuities of Identity Erasure within Victim Groups” LIPG argued that “…the ongoing state repression against the Armenian Apostolic Church in Armenia, including the arrests and intimidation of clergy, the targeting of ecclesiastical institutions, and the state’s increasing use of the legal system to silence religious leadership. These developments represent a dangerous challenge to Armenia’s democratic institutions as well as an encroachment on the core institutions of Armenian identity. They are an unfortunate example of how genocidal processes can become internalized during periods of threat.”
LIPG also warned the world that “The combination of selective prosecutions, limited transparency, and direct state intervention in religious affairs raises serious concerns that legal mechanisms are being used [by the Pashinyan government] not to uphold the law but to undermine the autonomy of the Armenian Apostolic Church.”
In depicting the extreme measures adopted by the Turkish Ittihadists prior to the Armenian Genocide of 1915 and the parallels discerned today in the measures used callously by the Pashinyan government LIPG argued that “The current wave of repression [initiated by Pashinyan against the Armenian Apostolic Church] echoes a familiar and tragic historical pattern deeply embedded in the collective memory of the Armenian people. During the Armenian Genocide (1915–1923), the Ottoman authorities did not merely seek to murder or remove a population; they aimed to obliterate an entire civilization by severing its identity from its moral and spiritual core. The first phase of the genocide began with the systematic targeting of Armenian intellectuals, clergy, and community leaders, a deliberate strategy to decapitate the nation’s leadership and erase the voices that could organize resistance or preserve cultural cohesion.
This calculated campaign against Armenian Christianity reveals that genocide operates not only through physical annihilation but also through cultural and spiritual identity erasure. The eradication of the Church as the moral compass and unifying institution of the nation was central to the genocidal logic. In other words, Pashinyan persecution of the Armenian Apostolic Chrurch is based on the “Genocidal Logic” used by The Turkish Ittihadists who masterminded and executed the Armenian Genocide of 1915.
Full text of the warning released by LIPG is available at the following link:
https://www.lemkininstitute.com/statements-new-page/statement-on-the-suppression-of-the-armenian-apostolic-church%3A-historical-continuities-of-identity-erasure-within-victim-groups
We failed to hold Pashinyan, the architect of the “Engineered Defeat” of the 44-Day War accountable for the loss of 5,000 brave Armenian soldiers, sacrificed casually to protect the political future of a sociopath occupying the Office of The Prime Minister of Armenia.
We failed to hold Pashinyan accountable for declaring in the City of Prague (October 2022) that Artsakh is part and parcel of Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity.
We failed to hold Pashinyan accountable for the “Ethnic Cleansing” of Artsakh in September 2023.
We failed to stop the “Cultural Genocide” Pashinyan is implementing today by destroying the Armenian Apostolic Church.
How difficult is it for a nation (Hayrenik & Diaspora) to remember the promise we made known as “Never Again”?
How difficult is it for a nation to ban an evil ruler from the political landscape of Armenia by defeating him during the elections of June 2026?
Remember, as a newly elected Chancelor, Hitler promised his nation that he will be the architect of an “Empire” that will last 1000 years. In nine years (1936-1945) Germany was in ruins.
Like Hitler, Pashinyan is promising us a “Prosperous Fourth Republic” dominated economically by the two Turkish tribes (Azerbaijan, Turkey) and resting on the ruins of a “Cultural Genocide” that will declare Armenia as the most recent Villayet of Turkey.
After all the failures listed above, do you think we honored the promise “Never Again” we made to the 1.5 million martyrs of the Armenian Genocide of 1915?
Who could have imagined that the Armenian Apostolic Church would be persecuted in an independent Armenia? The church has been persecuted many times throughout its history, with persecutions occurring on and off during centuries of foreign rule, and the persecutors were distinctly not Armenian (Armenian Bolsheviks can be counted to this group, because they were doing the persecutions of the Armenian Apostolic Church and of Armenian nationalists under the orders of their foreign Bolshevik overlords).
That is, until Pashinyan came to power and began to persecute the Armenian Apostolic Church and Armenian nationalists, for opposing and challenging his treachery. Worse, Pashinyan, Azerbaijan and Turkey, seem to be in cahoots in vilifying the Armenian Apostolic Church as “religious fanatics” and as an “obstactle” to the fake “peace treaty” (i.e. appeasement of Azerbaijan and its big brother Turkey). Pashinyan’s attempt to silence and neutralize the Armenian Apostolic Church, is not only to remove the biggest opponent to his authoritarian rule, also to make appeasement of Azerbaijan and Turkey much easier.
It was the Armenian Apostolic Church which kept Armenian identity, language and culture alive during centuries of foreign rule and oppression, when there was no independent Armenia and no other Armenian institution to speak of. Those ungrateful people who defend Pashinyan’s “actions” against the Armenian Apostolic Church, seem to have completely forgotten the Church’s importance to the Armenian nation, in Armenian history, and its role in the struggle for independence for Armenia.
Pashinyan should note the revolutionary movement taking place right now to the south of Armenia in Iran.
I believe that the Armenian people will remain passive until the June 2026 elections as everybody is clinging to the hope that there can be a peaceful change.
However, if the elections are rigged, and I fear they will be then there will be mass demonstrations in Yerevan.
One of the causes of any Armenian revolutionary movement will be resentment at the attacks on the Church.
I don’t think outsiders can comprehend how central the Church is to Armenian identity.
For 800 years, from the 11th to the 19th centuries, there was no Armenia. The Armenians lived as dhimmis, sometimes under the rule of the Turks, sometimes the Persians, sometimes both.
It was the Church that bound the people together and preserved the idea of Armenia, its language, its faith, its culture. There wouldn’t be an Armenia today without the Church.
By attacking the Church, Pashinyan is only hastening his own demise.
Expect the Church to be a potent force in the Revolution that is to come.
I hope the ARF is studying how ordinary people are being mobilised by revolutionary forces in Iran right now.
Regarding unrest in friendly neighbour Iran, this is combination of economic despair caused by national policies and UN and US sanctions on that country. Obviously there’s subversion but like Syria in 2024 and the recent abduction of Maduro of Venezuela economic weakness makes infiltration easier. If the clerical regime fails and a government more aligned to the USA forms. Trade with Iran will be easier and Azerbaijan value to Israel will diminsh if it has a puppet in Tehran and the all weather relationship with Iran Armenia has should remain and hopefully can be better developed.
Who would ever have thought that Whats App would be a key revolutionary tool?!
The revolutionaries in Iran are spreading their message through Whats App!
Revolution has reached Armenia’s southern border!
Hopefully, this is the final moment. It is a matter of when, not if the regime falls. If the Islamist theocratic regime in Iran indeed falls and it succesfully transitions to a secular democracy, it will be a huge slap in the face and will cause a huge demoralization for all the Muslim fundamentalists across the world who are fans of the Islamic Republic, including Erdogan and other Turkish Islamists who have expressed support and admiration for this regime.
There is only one thing that the Islamic Republic should be “thanked” for: The ayatollahs, through their oppression and their forcing Islam down the throats of the Iranian people, have become so hated, that instead of creating a pious Muslim society, the vast majority of the Iranian people have ended up hating Islam and disliking organized religion in general, to the point that it has become one of the most irreligious countries in the world. During the previous anti-hijab Mahsa Amini protests which the regime eventually bloodily crushed, the people not only demolished the statue of Ayatollah Khomeini, burned down his childhood home as well as police stations, they burned down dozens of mosques.
However, the transition from dictatorship to democracy isn’t a walk in the park, and it could always backfire and produce worse results, such as fragmentation and civil war, like in Iraq, Libya or Syria, because of the separatist movements in Iran, such as the Azeris, Kurds, Baluchis, Arabs and Turkmens, along with inevitable malevolent interference from outside actors, which, as always, includes the United States, Israel, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Pakistan, etc. I hope that it doesn’t come to this scenario, so I am cautiously optimistic.
I hope that this revolution in Iran, catches on in Armenia to depose Pashinyan, because in June 2026, it will inevitably come to a showdown between Pashinyan and the Armenian people, after he rigs the elections to entrench his dictatorship.
Hear! Hear!
Although Armenia and Iran have a cordial relationship the two nations have little influence upon eachother thus violence revolution warfare in either country has little meaningful effect on the other, say the Iranian revolution of 1979 and it’s subsequent war with Iraq had no perceptible bearing on Armenian SSR, likewise unrest in Armenian SSR and Azeri SSR had little impact on Iran. Thus whilst it might show an established paradigm can collapse this is something already familiar such as the collapse of the USSR, the end of the said karabakh clan ascendancy in Armenia, the loss of Arktash.
Whilst not responsible in any way Armenia has incidentally actually been adversely affected in a collateral way by the clerical regime and it’s anti USA and Israel stance, as Azerbaijan traditionally at odds with Iran was sought by Israel as a regional ally against Iran and clearly benefitted from the contention as Israel supplied much weaponry and intelligence to Azerbaijan in return for its cooperation against Iran and the assets Azerbaijan gained were used to target Armenia. It also made it difficult for Armenia to develop a stronger relationship with Iran as this would antagonise the USA although, Iran’s own priorty focus elsewhere towards it’s Arab neighbours and Pathan kin and Russia influence such as the restricted gas pipeline stymied the potential. It’s possible Azerbaijan will be of less value to Israel if the clerical regime falls just like Kuwait was of less value to the USA after they overthrew Saddam Hussain and Yugoslavia suddenly found itself and it’s non aligned policy useless to the west when the iron curtain and cold war ended with the collapse of the communist governments of its neighbours.
It’s ironic that pro Russia commentors seem to be rooting for anti clerical regime and more aligned to the USA factions in Iran since if they do fall Russia is likely to lose a sympathetic state. Although it’s plausible Russia could drop Iran for leeway in Ukraine.
The answer is neither Pashinyan or the Dashnaks. Hayastan needs to remove the Civil Contract party at all costs and there needs to be a true reform party to step foward.
Misht Hay!
@Kail Papazian-McHugh
I don’t know if you know but you happen to be on a Dashnak site.
:)
It is indefensible for any leader of Armenia to seek to usurp the traditional authority of the Armenian Apostolic Church. He is but a passing figure in the sweep of history. The Armenian Church is the rock that has always defined our history. After the blood shed by millions of Armenians before us for independence, after the Battle of Avaryr, after the Ottoman Genocide, should we now be beholden to outside forces? Any issue of religious significance must be solved within the traditional church, not by a political contrivance.