Pashinyan proposes personally appointing council to replace head of Church

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has proposed creating and personally appointing a council to elect a new Catholicos of the Armenian Apostolic Church.

In a lengthy social media post on Monday, he layed out the criteria for candidates applying to join the council. He urged those interested to send their application directly to his email, saying he would ‘take responsibility’ for the selection of the council’s first 10 members.

The announcement comes as a spat between Pashinyan and Catholicos Karekin II has continued to intensify.

Pashinyan’s criteria for members of the council included five requirements: belief in the ‘living Lord, Jesus Christ’, to have fully read the Bible, to have observed Lent at least once in the past five years, and to pray daily.

The final requirement says that candidates are expected to ‘believe that the agenda of the renewal of the Mother See stems from the interests of the Armenian Apostolic Holy Church, our people, and our state, and is in accordance with the sacred tradition of our ancestors’.

Acknowledging that the criteria ‘cannot be objectively verified’, Pashinyan claimed he would carry it out ‘with God’s help’ through interviews with candidates, through which he would see if they match the criteria ‘with the eyes of the soul’.

Pashinyan had earlier stated that the Armenian state ‘must have’ a decisive say on the election of the head of the church. Following this, Parliamentary Speaker Alen Simonyan did not rule out undertaking constitutional amendments regarding the church. A similar statement was also made by Justice Minister Srbuhi Galyan.

Pashinyan vows to prove that Karekin II has a child

The call for establishing a council came after Pashinyan doubled down on his accusations that Catholicos Karekin II had broken his celibacy vows with multiple social media posts.

The accusation came as part of an ongoing conflict between the government and the church, which erupted after Pashinyan claimed that churches had become ‘storerooms’ and that clergymen were breaking their vows of celibacy. Pashinyan additionally accused Karekin II of having a child.

Government-affiliated media circulates photo of Karekin II’s alleged daughter

The photo surfaced shortly after Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s allegations were made Monday.

OC MediaArshaluys Barseghyan

On Monday, Pashinyan again insisted that Karekin II had a child and vowed to prove his claims ‘in the necessary format’ if the head of the church denied it.

Having a child makes one ineligible to serve either as the head of the Church or as a high-ranking clergyman, according to the Canon Law of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Pashinyan wrote.

Referring to Karekin II by his birth name, Pashinyan said that ‘Ktrich Nersisyan must vacate the Patriarchate’.

In the same post he also called on the public and followers of the church ‘to unite around the agenda of liberating the Patriarchate with love and Christianity and electing a truly sacred clergyman as Catholicos of All Armenians’.

In another post, in reference to the 2018 Velvet Revolution, Pashinyan wrote ‘we have returned the state (government) to the people […] we must also return the church to the people’ to whom both the state and the church belong

Pashinyan, along with members of his Civil Contract party, has also accused Armenia’s first President, Levon Ter-Petrosyan, a former ally of his, of being  ‘the founder of the practice of election fraud’ in Armenia, following the latter’s visit to the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, where he ‘expressed his full support’ to Karekin II on 7 June.

Ter-Petrosyan also ‘strongly condemn[ed] the unconstitutional encroachment’ of the Armenian authorities on the Armenian Church.

Pashinyan to sue a media outlet for accusing him of betraying his wife

On 6 June, Pashinyan vowed to sue Hraparak, a tabloid media, which by mimicking Pashinyan’s employed tactics against Karekin II, demanded that Pashinyan issue a clarification regarding rumours of him having an extramarital affair.

Hraparak cited rumours circulating ‘a few years ago’, suggesting that Pashinyan had an affair with his spokesperson, who according to similar rumours, had been fired at the request of his wife.

‘We are interested in this information only to form an opinion about the moral qualities of the prime minister. We, his voters, are waiting for his public explanation regarding his violation of marital fidelity. To remain silent or lie means to put oneself outside moral norms’, the outlet wrote.

In response, Pashinyan vowed to sue them, ‘to prove that family and  spiritual life are values ​​and principles for me, and not a means to mislead people’.

Pashinyan in turn urged Karekin II to sue him ‘to prove his compliance with the declared values ​​and the status of Catholicos’.

Pashinyan was joined by other members of his Civil Contract party and his wife, Anna Hakobyan in his attacks on the church.

The antipathy between the government and the church’s leadership became more open in the aftermath of Armenia’s defeat in the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020 when the head of the church joined calls for Pashinyan’s resignation.

In its only official response to Pashinyan’s accusations, the Armenian Church on 2 June called on the authorities ‘to halt the prime minister’s unlawful and shortsighted policies’.

Pashinyan and wife accuse clergymen of paedophilia and violating celibacy vows

Relations between Pashinyan and the Armenian Church have deteriorated, especially since Armenia’s defeat in the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020.

OC MediaArshaluys Barseghyan