Opinion | Narek Karapetyan’s disingenuous manipulation of the Church-Pashinyan conflict
Narek Karapetyan distorts reality on the Tucker Carlson show, helping create yet another pro-Russian piece of propaganda.
Earlier in November, Narek Karapetyan, the nephew of detained Russian–Armenian billionaire Samvel Karapetyan appeared on the talk show of influential far-right US pundit and conspiracy theorist Tucker Carlson. During the show, he claimed that the Armenia–Azerbaijan conflict had erupted because of the wider confrontation between Christians and Muslims, that the Armenian Genocide happened ‘because Armenians were Christians’, and that the current tension between Armenia’s political leadership and the hierarchy of the Armenian Apostolic Church is part of ‘a struggle against Christianity’.
All these claims are far from the truth.
Narek Karapetyan’s goal in appearing on Carlson’s programme can be explained twofold: to strengthen his political standing inside Armenia by reshaping his public image and to present himself to Armenian audiences as someone endorsed by the American conservative media sphere. At the same time, even while attempting to distance himself from the ‘pro-Russian’ label domestically, his interview ended up amplifying classic Russian disinformation narratives to a US audience.
But before examining the content of the interview, it is important to clarify who Carlson’s guest actually was — something that was left out of the programme.
OC Media
Narek Karapetyan is the son of Karen Karapetyan, who served as Chief of Staff to Armenia’s third president, Serzh Sargsyan, and was elected an MP several times from the then-ruling Republican Party. Narek Karapetyan previously headed the family-owned Tashir Group, but had never played a public political role or voiced political positions.
All this changed when the confrontation between the government and senior clergy of the Armenian Apostolic Church escalated, and his uncle, Samvel Karapetyan, unexpectedly appeared at Armenia’s spiritual centre in Etchmiadzin, announcing: ‘If the politicians fail, then we will participate in all this in our own way’.
This short 36 second interview resulted in Karapetyan being arrested on charges of calling for a coup d’état.
This detail, mentioned in Carlson’s show, is one of the very few things that is factually correct. But even this ‘truth’ needs context.
Armenia’s internal crisis: government–Church tensions
After the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020 and the subsequent 2023 ethnic cleansing of Armenians in the region, Armenia and Azerbaijan launched bilateral negotiations and made some progress on border delimitation and normalisation. The process began in the north, where four Azerbaijani villages — occupied by Armenian forces in the 1990s to secure the Armenia–Georgia strategic road and constantly under attack from Azerbaijani side — remained under Armenian control. Returning these territories triggered significant domestic protests, led by Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan of the Tavush Diocese.
His movement marched to Yerevan in August 2024, demanding Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s resignation and promising to ‘return to Artsakh [Nagorno-Karabakh] through Voskepar’, referring to one of the villages returned. Although the movement ultimately failed, the political activism of certain clergy continued to shape Armenia’s public life.
In June 2025, Armenian investigators arrested several individuals — including Galstanyan — on charges of planning a coup and preparing ‘illegal actions’. Another senior cleric, Archbishop Mikael Ajapahyan, was arrested for openly calling for a violent overthrow of the government.
The authorities claim that these activities are linked to Catholicos Karekin II, who had publicly demanded Pashinyan’s resignation after the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020. He later called this demand ‘open-ended’ after Pashinyan’s re-election in 2021.
While the Catholicos did not openly endorse the anti-government movements, clergy who publicly supported the government were disciplined or even defrocked. For example, Archbishop Vazgen Mirzakhanyan was reprimanded in April 2025 after welcoming Pashinyan’s ‘peace agenda’ during a visit to Estonia.
Another priest, who was officially defrocked for placing the chrism vessel on a baby’s head during a baptism, had invited Pashinyan to a church service and had accused unnamed senior clergymen of corruption and indecent behavior.
Ruling party members, in turn, frequently argue that parts of the Church remain under Russian influence, inherited from Soviet-era cooperation between religious institutions and the KGB. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s publicly stated concern over the ‘attacks on the Armenian Church’ and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s awarding of a medal to the Primate of the Diocese of Russia and New Nakhichevan of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Ezras Nersisyan, who is also the brother of the Armenian Catholicos, has been perceived within internal Armenian discourse as yet more proof of this connection.
In June, amidst another escalation, Pashinyan publicly accused the Catholicos of having a child and therefore being unfit for office, while accusing other clerics of ‘immoral sexual conduct’.
These cumulative tensions formed the backdrop for Samvel Karapetyan’s explosive statement, which the authorities interpreted as an attempted unconstitutional power grab.
Arshaluys Barseghyan
Karapetyan’s supporters then co-opted the phrase ‘our way’ into a real movement, pledging to turn it into a political party ahead of Armenia’s 2026 parliamentary elections — a vote that many expect to revolve around Armenia’s foreign policy direction.
Within this domestic climate, pro-Russian opposition groups increasingly frame the Armenian government as ‘anti-Christian’, attempting to mobilise support in religious networks and Western Christian circles.
Narek Karapetyan’s interview must be viewed in this context of Russian disinformation and influence.
However, Karapetyan did not stop at misrepresenting Church–state relations. He also significantly distorted historical facts about the Armenian Genocide and the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
The Armenian Genocide was not about about Christianity
The Armenian Genocide took place in the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century and is officially recognised as genocide by many states, including the US. The claim that Armenians were killed because they were Christians distorts the historical record, something that even the Church agrees on. As the Catholicos of the Armenian Apostolic Church of Cilicia explains:
‘The presence of the Armenian people was an obstacle to the ideological plans of the Young Turks. This is why the genocide was planned. Those who bring the clash between Islam and Christianity into the current controversy over the Armenian Genocide distort the reality’.
Crucially, many Christian Armenian survivors were sheltered by Arab Muslims, demonstrating that the genocide was not a simple Christian–Muslim dichotomy.
Thus, to claim the genocide happened ‘because Armenians were Christians’ is either ignorance or deliberate manipulation.
Yousef Bardouka
Armenian leaders consistently avoided framing the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict as a Christian–Muslim conflict, whereas Azerbaijan attempted unsuccessfully to gain Muslim-world support by portraying it through a religious lens. Even Iran, a Shi’a Islamic state and Azerbaijan’s neighbour, maintained neutrality and even attempted to mediate the conflict in 1992. Armenia and Iran have remained allies, while Azerbaijan and Iran have had a much more contentious relationship.
In 1993, Catholicos Vazgen I and Azerbaijan’s Sheikh-ul-Islam Allahshukur Pashazade adopted the first joint statement confirming the conflict had no religious character.
Meanwhile, Azerbaijan today continues trying to frame the conflict as being religiously motivated for political gain and initiates resolutions in Islamic multilateral organisations that claim ‘the right of Azerbaijanis to return to Western Azerbaijan’ — a fabricated term referring to sovereign Armenian territory.
After ethnically cleansing Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan has also pursued a policy of erasing Armenian Christian heritage in the region, destroying or rebranding churches as ‘Caucasian Albanian’.
Instead of speaking about these facts, Narek Karapetyan blamed Pashinyan for ‘making all Christian Armenians move to Armenia’.
As a result, the Carlson interview exported an internal Armenian political argument about who is ‘more Christian’ into the American discourse, ignoring Azerbaijan’s ongoing destruction of Christian sites and instead falsely naming Armenia as pursuing an ‘anti-Christianity’ policy.
This same narrative was also the primary message of Robert Amsterdam, who accompanied Narek Karapetyan during the interview. Amsterdam, who is one of Samvel Karapetyan’s lawyers, has experience of defending the rights of controversial high-profile clients, including the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP), which has been accused of maintaining links with the Russian Orthodox Church, itself closely linked with the Kremlin. When speaking about ‘attacks on Christianity’ in Armenia, Amsterdam did not forget to draw parallels between Pashinyan and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi, helping Carlson gain yet another piece of pro-Russian, anti-Ukrainian propaganda content.
Ironically, Pashinyan in recent months has publicly emphasised Christian ethics, frequently sharing Psalms on social media, participating in services (including with a defrocked priest), and promoting discussions on clerical ethics and moral behavior in public life. Though sometimes mixing these ‘ethics’ with loud accusations and unethical vocabulary, it is generally more concerning that Pashinyan’s vocabulary is becoming too religious rather than a fabricated fear that he is ‘against Christianity’.
Meanwhile, Carlson’s interview with Narek Karapetyan fits squarely within a broader Russian disinformation campaign and misleads international audiences while undermining Armenia’s position at a critical geopolitical moment.
