Pashinyan escalates confrontation with Armenian Church

YEREVAN, Armenia (MNTV) — Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Tuesday intensified his confrontation with the leadership of the Armenian Apostolic Church, accusing Catholicos Karekin II and the church’s senior clergy of operating in “sectarian” and “schismatic” fashion and urging supporters to back what he called a campaign to “free” the church.

Speaking to supporters after attending a Christmas liturgy, Pashinyan said the church’s top leadership had broken from canonical principles and must be reformed.

“Today, the de facto head of the church and his narrow elite are acting in sectarian logic. This means we must free our church from schism,” Pashinyan said.

The prime minister has attended services led by priests deemed non-canonical or defrocked by the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, the church’s spiritual center. Church authorities have urged those clergy to return to the canonical framework and resolve disputes internally, rather than through political action.

Pashinyan and several bishops calling for the Catholicos’ resignation recently signed a document outlining church reforms. On Tuesday, he invited citizens to join a march in support of that agenda after attending a Christmas service at St. Gregory the Illuminator Church in Yerevan, where Bishop Anushavan Zhamkochyan — a supporter of the reform campaign — led the liturgy.

Senior state officials, including the president and parliamentary speaker, attended the service, while security forces were deployed throughout the church. Many attendees voiced support for the prime minister’s stance, arguing the church should stay out of politics or endorsing Pashinyan’s actions outright.

The march later moved toward the Holy Mother of God Catholic Church near the Catholicos’ residence. Heavy security prevented journalists from approaching Pashinyan as he addressed the crowd from a stage, declaring that church and state were now united — despite Armenia’s constitution stating that religious organizations are separate from the state.

“The church is not alone, the state is not alone, because the church and the state are already together,” Pashinyan said.

He urged citizens to attend churches aligned with his initiative and called on clergy to omit the Catholicos’ name during liturgies until a new leader is elected by the National-Ecclesiastical Assembly.

Meanwhile, at the Mother Cathedral of Holy Etchmiadzin, Catholicos Karekin II led a separate Christmas liturgy attended by worshippers opposed to the prime minister’s campaign. In his Christmas message, the Catholicos described the government’s actions as repression against the church and warned of damage to Armenia’s national and state authority.

“This situation is a serious blow to the authority of our nation and a deep wound to believers,” Karekin II said, adding that the Armenian Church had endured persecution throughout history without losing its faith.

The Catholicos also offered prayers for displaced Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh, prisoners, missing persons and fallen soldiers.

The rift has drawn reactions from across the Armenian church world. Archbishop Sahak Mashalyan, the Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople, condemned what he called attacks on the Catholicos and called for an urgent National Church Assembly to resolve the crisis — a step the Mother See has said it is preparing.

Opposition lawmakers accused Pashinyan of unconstitutional interference in church affairs, while supporters argue the conflict has prompted renewed public engagement with religious life.

The standoff marks one of the most serious church-state confrontations in post-Soviet Armenia, pitting the country’s elected leadership against one of its oldest and most influential institutions.