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Armenian prime minister picks fight with church [1]
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Date: 2025-06
Nikol Pashinyan (left) and Karekin II pray together soon after the former’s ascend to power in 2018. The relationship has since soured. (Photo: primeminister.am)
Tension between church and state is bubbling over in Armenia over Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s plan to overhaul Armenian society.
Pashinyan’s “Real Armenia” blueprint asks Armenians to draw a line on the past and focus on future economic development. In effect, Pashinyan wants citizens to stop fixating on such issues as the loss of Nagorno-Karabakh and concentrate on modernizing society so that the country can economically compete in the 21st century.
The prime minister evidently considers the Armenian Apostolic Church as a major impediment to his modernization plans, so on June 1, he dropped a bombshell accusation clearly designed to undermine the church’s authority, speculating that the country’s top cleric, Karekin II, has fathered a child in violation of his vow of celibacy.
“If it turns out that Karekin II has indeed violated his vow of celibacy and has a child, then he cannot be the Catholicos of all Armenians,” Pashinyan wrote on social media. “I raise this issue as a follower of the ArmenianApostolic Church, since I see a threat to spiritual security, and I also say this as the prime minister of the Republic of Armenia, since I see a threat to state security.”
Church leaders responded the next day, issuing a statement framing Pashinyan’s accusation as traitorous action. “The head of government’s hateful behavior towards the Church and the processes initiated by him, directed against national values and the Church, are fraught with destructive consequences and pose a threat to the Armenian statehood,” the statement said.
“Such actions lead to a split in society, undermine spiritual unity, weaken the spirit of the nation and loyalty to the native country, especially in the conditions of the serious trials we are facing,” it added.
The statement did not directly address whether Karekin II was a father, while insisting that the paternity question was an internal Church affair and not a matter of state.
Pashinyan wasn’t bowed by the Church’s condemnation, and on June 3 he revived his call for the Church leaders to specify whether or not the Catholicos had violated his celibacy vow.
The outburst of acrimony was days in the making. Pashinyan in late May suggested the government should have a major role in the selection of future Church leaders, while the prime minister’s wife, Anna Hakobyan, attacked the Church, alleging it is a hotbed of “pedophiles.”
The tension between Karekin II and Pashinyan is rooted in Armenia’s devastating defeat at the hands of the Azerbaijani military in the first phase of the Second Karabakh War. At that time, Karekin II issued a video call for Pashinyan to resign.
It’s uncertain whether Pashinyan’s attack on the Church will reap political dividends for his Real Armenia program. He appears to have alienated a segment of his support base. An appeal signed by representatives of 17 non-governmental organizations criticized Pashinyan for using misogynistic language “as a tool for political targeting,” and demanded he issue an apology.
“Sexually degrading and misogynistic language towards women, regardless of political context or purpose, is unacceptable, especially from the highest official in the country,” the NGO statement said.
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