Armenia is hosting a national prayer breakfast — the first event of its kind in the country — with the participation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Christian figures from around the world. The prayer breakfast has stirred some controversy as it comes amidst an ongoing dispute between Pashinyan’s government and the Armenian Apostolic Church.
The event is set to run from Friday to Saturday, but the exact schedule has not been publicly shared.
According to the official website, the purpose of the prayer breakfast is ‘to renew Armenia’s spiritual foundations and affirm its traditional Christian values. To convene leaders with a shared moral vision for open conversation, mutual understanding, and the pursuit of strategies that promote peace, prosperity, and principled governance’.
Pashinyan is set to give the keynote address, although earlier reports indicated that influential American evangelical leader Franklin Graham had been chosen to give the address. Christianity Today, a magazine founded by Graham’s father Billy Graham, reported that ‘his schedule did not permit him to attend’.
In addition, there were reports that Donald Trump Jr., the American president’s eldest son, as well as the late conservative pundit Charlie Kirk, were initially going to attend the event.
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However, Trump Jr. reportedly cancelled his trip to Armenia following the release of an episode earlier in November about Pashinyan’s clash with the Church by influential American far-right commentator Tucker Carlson. Alongside Carlson was Narek Karapetyan, the nephew of Russian–Armenian tycoon Samvel Karapetyan, who is currently in jail on charges of inciting ‘public calls to seize power’ after publicly defending the Armenian Apostolic Church during a government dispute with the clergy. Karapetyan’s lawyer, Robert Amsterdam, was also on the show, where he criticised the prayer breakfast, calling it a ‘reputation laundering breakfast’.
Amsterdam further added that the ‘US government allows this to go on’, but did not specify what he meant.
Since mid-2024, the standoff between the Church and Pashinyan has widened to involve high-ranking clerics and leading opposition figures. In June 2025, Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan and other church-aligned activists were arrested on charges of plotting to overthrow the government — a move condemned by the church as political persecution.
The Catholicosate has repeatedly accused Pashinyan’s administration of encroaching on its independence and using state agencies to undermine it. Pashinyan, for his part, has accused church officials of meddling in politics, aligning with opposition forces and threatening the country’s stability.
The spat has included a number of below-the-belt moments, including when Pashinyan offered to show his penis to the head of the Church, Karekin II, after a priest accused him of being circumcised. He also accused Karekin II of illegitimately fathering a child and urged him to step down.
From a wider view, critics of the Church have alleged that it remains under Russia’s influence, a charge that has extended to Karapetyan and his newly founded political movement.
Arshaluys Barseghyan
