Courier Online, Aug. 3, 2026
Sassounian
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1- If Pashinyan Jails Catholicos Karekin II
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan is crossing all permissible red lines, exceeding every limit on his power.
In the past eight years, Pashinyan has violated hundreds of laws and multiple provisions of the Constitution. Meanwhile, a large number of Armenians have been thrown in jail, not for violating the law, but for simply disagreeing with him — a fundamental right that all citizens are supposed to enjoy in a democratic state.
Pashinyan has made it clear that laws do not apply to him. He can violate any law, and no judge can stop him, as he has boastfully claimed.
Ever since seizing power in 2018, Pashinyan has viciously attacked the Armenian Apostolic Holy Church and its leadership. Despite his unchristian behavior, he frequently quotes the Holy Scriptures to deceive his gullible followers. The Holy Bible cites Matthew 4:5-7, Luke 4:9-12, and Psalm 91:11-12 — in which the devil, also quoting Scriptures, urged Jesus to throw Himself down from the top of the Temple, claiming that the angels would save him. Jesus responded by quoting Deuteronomy 6:16: “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.”
Even though there has been an unsubstantiated rumor for a long time that the Catholicos had fathered a child, Pashinyan waited for seven years after coming to power to exploit this rumor when it suited his narrow political purposes. For over a year now, he has abused his high office by trying to depose Catholicos Karekin II.
Pashinyan has made public calls, issued personal threats, and even used vulgar language on his Facebook page to force the Catholicos to resign. Having failed in all of these attempts, he went as far as blackmailing 10 high-ranking clergymen to force them to side with him against the Catholicos. Under the guise of “reforming” the Church, he formed a “citizens’ committee” to replace the Catholicos. It is mind-boggling that a man who is too incompetent to rule the country wants to meddle in the internal affairs of the Church and decide who should be the next Catholicos. This is none of his business.
Naturally, all of these efforts are clear violations of Armenia’s Constitution, which calls for the separation of Church and State. But, since Pashinyan has established an autocratic one-man rule, he persists in trying to impose his will. In early January, when Catholicos Karekin II and a committee of six bishops dismissed Bishop Gevorg Saroyan as the Primate of the Masyatsotn Diocese, Pashinyan urged Saroyan to reject the Church’s internal decision and file a lawsuit to block his dismissal. The Church leadership then defrocked him on January 27.
The Court illegally ordered the Catholicos not to dismiss Saroyan and banned Karekin II from leaving the country, depriving him and the six bishops of the Supreme Spiritual Council of the opportunity to participate in an important episcopal conference in Austria. Nevertheless, the conference was held, and the 25 bishops who gathered from around the world expressed their support for the Catholicos and criticized Pashinyan’s government for prosecuting the Church.
The preliminary hearing for the trial of the Catholicos and the six other bishops is set for August 7, at 4 pm, at the Vagharshapat (Etchmiadzin) Court. This is the first time that the independent Republic of Armenia has filed criminal charges against a Catholicos of All Armenians. During their centuries-long rule, neither the Ottoman Empire nor Czarist Russia ever brought legal charges against any of the Catholicoi. The only exception was the murder of Catholicos Khoren I, who was strangled to death by Soviet security agents on April 6, 1938.
The dragging of the Catholicos to court is an illegal act and a flagrant abuse of power by Pashinyan’s government. Armenians have been telling the world with great pride for over 1,700 years that Armenia was the first state to adopt Christianity. Yet, their own government is treating the Church’s leadership as criminals.
The only good news is Catholicos Karekin II’s announcement that he will not resign even if he is arrested and imprisoned. He will continue to serve as the legitimate Catholicos even while sitting in jail.
The Pashinyan government has, over the past eight years, committed a series of unprecedented anti-Church acts:
— In 2018, it canceled the diplomatic passports of clergy members.
— It eliminated the subject of “History of the Armenian Church” from the public school curriculum.
— In 2024, it discontinued the services of the chaplains stationed at penitentiaries.
— It terminated the spiritual services of the chaplains in the Armed Forces.
— It plans to confiscate all Church buildings and properties.
— Its security forces raided the grounds of Holy Etchmiadzin to arrest an Archbishop.
— It arrested and imprisoned several high-ranking clergymen on bogus charges.
— In violation of Parliament’s rules, the authorities did not allow the Catholicos to say a prayer at its opening session on August 2, 2026.
— It collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes and penalties from the Church on candles bought by worshippers, even though the Church is a non-profit organization and those purchasing candles are making donations.
Judge Hakob Manukyan should dismiss the charges against the Catholicos and the six bishops on August 7 so that he will not become an accomplice to Pashinyan’s illegal actions. Otherwise, Judge Manukyan will become the subject of international ridicule when the European Court of Human Rights eventually rules that his verdict violated Armenia’s Constitution.
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Benny SunResident AdvisorThe Chicago-based artist has launched a fundraiser to assist with costs associated with her detainment.Palestinian-Armenian DJ Nanoos was detained in Manchester on accusations of terrorism following an incident described as a “right-wing demonstration.”
The incident took place on July 18th, the day after the Chicago-based artist headlined a Pardee Bass event at Northern Quarter venue Soup. Wearing a keffiyeh, Nanoos allegedly engaged with a gathering she believed to be a vigil for Iranian victims of war, but turned out to be a right-wing demonstration, per a statement she shared to Instagram yesterday. She was then detained for 11 hours by Greater Manchester Police on accusations of terrorism. Her phone remains confiscated by the police.
The artist was told she couldn’t leave the country until she reported back to the police the following week on July 25th. When she returned to the station, she was told there had been no movement on the case, and while she was free to leave the country, her phone was not returned.
Nanoos has launched a fundraiser, which has since raised over $5,000, to cover lost travel expenses and gig fees, costs of staying in Manchester and future legal fees as the investigation continues. She was previously set to continue her European tour through Edinburgh, Glasgow and Berlin.
“I never thought something like this would happen to me,” she wrote on her donation page. “And although DJing looks glamorous, the income is really rough, and there’s no safety net when everything falls apart at once.”
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Originally from the province of Van, he was born into a family of 14 members, of which only he and his mother survived the genocide.
His father and three of his uncles were killed in a work battalion on the way to Bashkale, after the mobilization of 1914.
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They were among the thousands of mostly young Israelis who on that May afternoon marched through the historic Old City for a national celebration that marks the capture of East Jerusalem in 1967. It is an annual show of force that the area’s mostly Palestinian residents find provocative.
On that recent afternoon, there were at least a dozen spitting incidents near the Armenian church alone, according to security-camera footage, witnesses and a Wall Street Journal reporter on the scene.
Incidents of anti-Christian hate, once sporadic, are becoming routine in Jerusalem, a city held sacred in Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Most Israelis condemn this behavior, but negative attitudes toward Christianity have become more common, particularly among young people, surveys show.
The incidents are embarrassing for Israel’s right-wing government, which says it is committed to upholding religious freedom in a region where discrimination is common. The government has appointed a new Arab Christian ambassador to help smooth relations with Christian communities, but critics say it isn’t doing enough.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s far-right national security minister, was the defense lawyer of the arsonists. He has said spitting on Christians is an ancient Jewish custom and shouldn’t be considered a crime.
Benedictine Abbot Nikodemus Schnabel said the situation has worsened dramatically since he first arrived in Jerusalem in 2000. At the time, spitting was rare. “Now there is no day that people are not spitting at me,” said the German-born monk. The attackers often come for his pectoral cross and sometimes shout at him to remove it.
In the first half of 2026, Harani’s organization registered 107 anti-Christian incidents, more than double the figures it recorded in the same period in 2024. The majority occurred in and around Jerusalem’s Old City and the most common form is spitting and verbal abuse, including shouts of “Death to Christians.” Trash is often thrown at monasteries. The biggest culprits were young Israelis, the report found.
The overwhelming majority of Christians who live in Jerusalem are Palestinian Arabs. But much of the anti-Christian behavior targets foreign clerics, nuns and the city’s overtly Christian symbols, according to victims and rights groups that monitor such incidents.
In April, a French nun on Jerusalem’s Mount Zion was shoved to the ground by a Jewish extremist. The nun recovered from her head injuries and the perpetrator was quickly detained, but victims and rights groups say most incidents, which are usually nonviolent, go unpunished.
There is also a deep-rooted fear of Christian proselytizing, and they oppose the statues and icons in churches that many regard as idolatry. Many are resentful of the Catholic Church for criticizing the conduct of the war in Gaza and for speaking out in defense of Palestinians.
Ramon used to take Israeli high-school students on field trips to Christian sites, but as students and their parents increasingly objected to those trips, most schools gradually stopped offering them. Ramon ended her tours in the mid-2000s.
Some Jewish extremists say they want Jerusalem’s churches destroyed or converted into synagogues. Among them is 19-year-old Atara Serwatien. “It should be a Jewish state,” she explained.
In March, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa—the most senior representative of the Catholic Church in the Holy Land—was denied entrance to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for Palm Sunday Mass.
Even if all sites of worship were closed to the public because of the continuing Iran war, Pizzaballa and another senior cleric planned a private ceremony in the church, where Christians believe Jesus was crucified, buried and resurrected. Nonetheless, they were still blocked by Israeli police.
“This incident is a grave precedent, and disregards the sensibilities of billions of people around the world who, during this week, look to Jerusalem,” the church leaders said in a statement. Israel acknowledged the mistake and Pizzaballa was allowed to celebrate Easter Mass the following week.
Anti-Christian behavior has tested the support of Israel’s staunchest allies in the U.S. When Mike Huckabee took over as U.S. ambassador to Israel last year, he was shocked to discover that evangelical Christian organizations were struggling to obtain visas. A strong supporter of Israel, Huckabee ran a tour company that brought thousands of Christian pilgrims to Israel and the West Bank and never had problems.
Huckabee went straight to Israel’s minister of interior, but the problem persisted, so he turned to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who finally helped release the visas.
She often accompanies a group of nuns from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, where they deliver food and clothes to the homeless and drug addicts. During one such mission, a group of young men from a yeshiva—a traditional Jewish seminary or academy—spat near the nuns.
Nudelman and her colleagues reported the incident to the head of the yeshiva, who vowed to take action. A few weeks later, when the nuns returned to the same spot, they were approached by students from the same yeshiva. Instead of spitting at them, the students greeted the white-veiled nuns with a warm “Shabbat Shalom!”
“For the first time, they were trying to reach out,” said Nudelman. “They wanted to understand.”
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Disclaimer: This article was contributed and translated into English by Emil Lazarian. While we strive for quality, the views and accuracy of the content remain the responsibility of the contributor. Please verify all facts independently before reposting or citing.
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