Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has led a march against Catholicos Karekin II in Yerevan, during which he claimed that the catholicos and his close circle employed ‘sectarian logic’.
The rally was held as Armenia celebrated Christmas on the same day on the grounds of the Church of St. Anna in Yerevan.
Ahead of the rally, Pashinyan attended a Christmas liturgy at St. Gregory the Illuminator Cathedral, the city’s main church, before leading a march from there to St Anna Church.
During the march, Pashinyan was accompanied by his wife, Anna Hakobyan, government officials including Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan, Defence Minister Suren Papikyan, Parliamentary Speaker Alen Simonyan, and other prominent members of the ruling Civil Contract party.
The march and rally were attended by hundreds of people. There are unconfirmed media reports claiming that administrative resources had been tapped into to mobilise a larger number of attendees.
During his speech at the rally, Pashinyan denied the accusations that his government was acting against the Church, instead saying that it followed the same doctrines as the Church.
In turn, Pashinyan accused unnamed figures of attempting to use the Armenian Apostolic Church as a ‘foothold’ to act against Armenia, calling those who allowed it to happen to be using sectarian logic. Pashinyan added that he would not allow that to happen as an elected leader.
‘Today, essentially, we must acknowledge that the Church’s de facto leader and his elite, the narrow circle he has formed, are within a sectarian logic, in a schism. This means that we must free our Church [...] from the schism; we must return the Church to the people’, Pashinyan said.
Calling it a ‘grave mistake’ that they left the Church and Christ alone with what he described as a ‘schism’, Pashinyan said that ‘the Church is not alone, and the state is not alone, because the Church and the state are now together’.
This statement appears to contradict the constitution of Armenia, which describes the country as a secular state where ‘religious organisations shall be separate from the state’.
Pashinyan also called on people to attend liturgies and urge priests to join his ‘reform’ of the Church.
On the same day, Karekin II reiterated that the Church ‘continues to be subjected to oppression’.
‘This situation is a serious blow to the authority of our nation and state and a deep wound inflicted upon communities and believers’, Karekin II said in his Christmas message. He added that despite all, that the Church ‘remains firm and unshaken’.
Pashinyan’s Church ‘reform’
The Tuesday march was announced by Pashinyan a day earlier, calling on citizens to join the march intended to mark Christmas. However, it also carried a political agenda.
The attendees were meant to show support for the Church reform initiative Pashinyan launched on Sunday and to protest what Pashinyan described as the use of the Armenian Church ‘as a tool of hybrid warfare by foreign forces’ by Karekin II and his close circle.
The statement announcing the launch of the reform was signed on Sunday by Pashinyan and the 10 senior clergy members who had called for the resignation of the catholicos.
Arshaluys Barseghyan
A day after the publication of the statement, the acting head of the Armenian Diocese of Switzerland, Proto-Archimandrite Goossan Aljanian, joined the statement, bringing the total of signatory priests to 11.
Pashinyan has doubled down on toppling Karekin II months before 2026 elections scheduled to be held in June, amid the ongoing high-tension between the Armenian government and the Church, which aligns more with the opposition.
Tensions between the government and the Church reached their peak in late May 2025, with Pashinyan accusing Catholicos Karekin II and other senior clergy of breaking their celibacy vows, rendering them ineligible for office.
The most serious allegation, however, remains Pashinyan’s claim that Karekin II and his brother, Archbishop Yezras of the Diocese of New Nakhchivan and Russia, maintain ties with foreign intelligence services.
As of January, four high-ranking priests have been detained on various charges.
