Catholicos Karekin II is met by supporters outside the court building in Etchmiadzin on Aug. 7 (Video screen grab)

With the release last week of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s and his government’s report on the so-called “Report on the Crisis in the Church,” and the increasing push by the authorities to persecute the Armenian Church, international criticism of that effort mounted this week.

The Holy See of Etchmiadzin has repeatedly condemned the authorities’ actions as unlawful interference in the Church’s internal affairs and has called for an end to the targeting of clergy and violations of the Church’s constitutionally protected autonomy.

The Armenian government’s campaign against the church was called an “unprecedented threat” by a European lawmaker at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on Monday, while the president of the Christian Solidarity International rejected Pashinyan’s plan.

Speaking at the PACE session on Monday, Sir Edward Leigh, a British lawmaker, warned that the Armenian Apostolic Church is facing what he described as an “unprecedented threat” from Armenia’s own authorities.

“The Armenian Apostolic Church is the world’s oldest national church, and today it faces an unprecedented threat, not from a foreign invader, but from its own government,” Leigh said.

He accused Pashinyan and the Armenian authorities of erasing the boundaries between Church and state and launching an unprecedented campaign against the Church’s freedom.

“The Council of Europe, above all, should be concerned with the freedom of our churches. What we are witnessing is not simply a political disagreement. It is a calculated attack on religious autonomy,” Leigh said.

John Eibner, the president of Christian Solidarity International, a religious watchdog that has had decades of experience and service in Armenia and Artsakh, said that his group rejects Pashinyan’s report in its entirety and urged his government to stop persecuting the Armenian Apostolic Church.

“Christian Solidarity International has examined this report and rejects it in its entirety. Its authorship, its methodology and the motives behind it seriously undermine its findings. The report is also an affront to the well-established principle of Church autonomy, guaranteed by both Armenian and international law,” Eibner said in his statement published on Monday.

“CSI calls on the Government of Armenia to withdraw the report, abandon its plan to remove the Catholicos and respect the autonomy of the Armenian Apostolic Holy Church. CSI also urges Armenia’s international partners—including the United States, the European Union and the Council of Europe—to remind Prime Minister Pashinyan of Armenia’s human rights obligations and to press his Government to cease interfering in the internal affairs of the Church,” Eibner added.

Below are excerpts from Eibner’s statement.

Contrary to what the report states, the Church crisis is one of the Government’s own making. The report has been published as part of a sustained, state-sponsored campaign against the Armenian Apostolic Holy Church (AAHC), a Church that has endured for more than 1,700 years and has long stood in defence of the Armenian nation.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan seeks to overthrow His Holiness Karekin II, Catholicos of All Armenians, and to bring the Church under state control, a goal he has pursued for more than a year. His plan to remove the Catholicos featured in his party’s election manifesto and is now written into his Government’s program. The report also follows the politically motivated arrests of senior clerics, spurious criminal charges against the Catholicos and six bishops, and government-backed efforts to foster splits in the Church. These and other measures violate the autonomy of the AAHC and call into question the Armenian government’s commitment to democracy and the rule of law.

The report is not the product of an independent inquiry or of any impartial or judicial process. It was written on the express instruction of the Prime Minister by his own press office. A government press office has no competence in theology or canon law, yet its authors quote the canons selectively and presume to pronounce on ecclesiastical matters. Some of the allegations are so grave that they should be examined by a proper tribunal, not aired in a political document issued by the Government as part of a discriminatory campaign. Indeed, by publishing such allegations while clerics, including the Catholicos, are facing trial, the Government also gravely prejudices their right to a fair hearing and to the presumption of innocence.

The report states that it relies on “open sources.” In practice, that means news sites, YouTube clips and Facebook posts, including the Prime Minister’s own. It offers almost no primary evidence, and many of the claims are unsubstantiated gossip, innuendo or hearsay. Many are made by clergy who have been disciplined by the Church, and several are long-standing opponents of the Catholicos. Where the Catholicos has not answered an accusation, his silence is treated as proof. What the report calls its “evidentiary basis” is weak. It has been assembled to justify a verdict reached long before the report was written, and it would not withstand scrutiny before any court or tribunal.

The report accuses the Catholicos of engaging in politics. It fails to acknowledge that he has acted in accordance with the Church’s exclusive mission, recognized in Armenia’s Constitution, in the spiritual life of the Armenian people and the preservation of their national identity. Nor does it say anything of the context in which the Church has spoken: the Government’s failures in the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War of 2020 and the ethnic cleansing of Nagorno Karabakh in 2023, the third anniversary of which falls this month. Speaking in defense of a grieving and displaced nation is not unlawful political activity. It conforms to the very role the Constitution anticipates for the Church.

Armenian law is equally clear that, although the AAHC is the national church, it is autonomous and self-governing. The State has no role in removing or replacing the Catholicos, a process that is governed wholly by the Church’s own canon law. Nor should the Government be peddling such reports to support its discriminatory campaign.