As parliamentary elections grow nearer, tensions between Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and the Armenian Apostolic Church continue to build.

Although Armenia is constitutionally secular, Christianity forms a core part of the national identity, with Armenians taking pride in being widely regarded as the first country to adopt Christianity as a state religion in 301. The current head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Catholicos Karekin II, maintained close ties with Armenia’s previous leaders, creating favourable conditions for cooperation. Under Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, however, relations have shifted, with developments surrounding Church-state relations coming to dominate public and political discourse.

The topic again rose to prominence in May 2025, when a new round of tension between the Church and state escalated after Pashinyan criticised Church leadership for failing to properly maintain churches across the country, comparing them to ‘storage rooms’ filled with construction materials and other non-religious items

As accusations against the Church, and specifically against Karekin II, continued to grow, Pashinyan gradually made clear that he was seeking to oust the Catholicos.

In January, this goal was formally articulated in a Church reform agenda signed by Pashinyan and 10 senior clergy members at Pashinyan’s official residence. The statement announced the creation of a Coordinating Council to be composed of the signatories and tasked with overseeing the organisational aspects of the reform process. Notably, Pashinyan signed the document in his capacity as Armenia’s prime minister — rather than as a follower of the Armenian Apostolic Church, as he had previously framed his involvement in Church issues — raising widespread concern that the move may have violated the constitution.

As Armenia heads toward its 2026 parliamentary elections, Pashinyan’s government has intensified its criticism of the Church, including warning of ‘hybrid threats’ facing the country, widely interpreted as referring to Russia, and hinting at Karekin II’s alleged foreign ties. It remains to be seen if Pashinyan will succeed in ousting Karekin II, however.

Why does Pashinyan want Karekin II out?

Pashinyan has put forward several justifications for seeking to replace Karekin II as Catholicos of the Armenian Apostolic Church, but two stand out.

First, he claims Karekin II violated his vow of celibacy and fathered a daughter, which would make him ineligible for the post.

Second — and more seriously — Pashinyan alleges that Karekin II has ties to ‘foreign intelligence services’, apparently Russian, which pose a threat to Armenia’s security. The accusations have raised questions about why no action was taken earlier, if Pashinyan’s government was aware of the information after coming to power in 2018.

Rejecting claims that he is seeking a more loyal Church leader, Pashinyan has claimed that he wants one free of foreign ties.

Still, as the standoff deepens, increasingly serious accusations against Karekin II and other senior clergy are always on offer — including allegations of paedophilia, employing ‘sectarian logic’, preaching ‘radical texts’, and ensuring ‘shadow money’ enters Armenia ‘to be used for political purposes’ — alongside the continued arrests of clergy on criminal grounds.

In February, Pashinyan offered further insights into his confrontation in an interview with Public TV, accusing the Church of acting as ‘a foreign state within the state’ and insisting that ‘the church should not engage in politics’.

Citing prior calls by Karekin II for Pashinyan’s resignation, as well as Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan’s 2024 anti-government protests, Pashinyan claimed such actions could not ‘remain without consequences, because we are talking about the sovereignty and security of our state’.

What pressure is Pashinyan employing against the Church?

Since the renewed confrontation, the government has taken a series of steps critics describe as repressive, targeting both the Church and Karekin II, interfering in the Church’s internal affairs, and using law enforcement as instruments of political pressure.

To start, four high-ranking priests have been placed in pre-trial detention on various charges, with two later remanded to house arrest and one under administrative supervision. The cases have sparked concern, particularly as some charges relate to incidents or statements from years ago, which authorities had previously declined to open investigations into, citing a lack of grounds.

Beyond the four detained clergy — including Karekin II’s nephew, Bishop Mkrtich Proshyan — other clerics, including Karekin II himself, have faced charges, with measures ranging from pre-trial detention to travel bans. Earlier in February, such restrictions prevented Karekin II from attending a bishops’ synod in Austria, in line with Pashinyan’s statement.

The cases have also affected other members of Karekin II’s family. His brother Gevorg Nersisyan and Nersisyan’s son Hambardzum were arrested during a local election campaign in Vagharshapat in November 2025. Following Pashinyan’s allegations, the Armenian Security Service (NSS) declassified documents claiming another brother, Archbishop Yezras, head of the Diocese of New Nakhchivan and Russia, had been recruited by the Soviet-era KGB.

Attempts to publicly discredit senior clergy have also intensified. Intimate footage allegedly depicting Archbishop Arshak Khachatryan was leaked, and the Pashinyan-affiliated website Civic.am has published a photo of Bishop Kirakos Davtyan in an alleged intoxicated, partially undressed state, suggesting he was an alcoholic.

Separately, authorities dissolved the Spiritual-Cultural Public TV company, which broadcasts the Church-founded Shoghakat TV. Reports also indicate that military commanders have pressured army chaplains to back Pashinyan’s reform agenda, while defrocked clergy were allowed to conduct liturgies under police supervision, with Pashinyan and officials in attendance. NSS officials were involved in omitting Karekin II’s name from services, a move that disrupted the established order of the religious ceremony and was a sign of protest against the Catholicos by his subordinates.

How is Karekin II fighting back?

Since tensions with the authorities increased in May 2025, Karekin II has defrocked or removed several opponents within the Church as a main tactic to fight back.

Among the first to be defrocked, in October 2025, was priest Aram Asatryan, an early vocal supporter of Pashinyan within the clergy. Neither Asatryan nor Pashinyan accepted Karekin II’s decision to strip him of his status; Pashinyan even attended a liturgy led by Asatryan following the decision. The Mother See called this liturgy ‘a soul-destroying initiative’ and accused Pashinyan of attempting to ‘split the Church’.

Asatryan remained at his assigned church, often seen under police protection. In January, the Church filed two lawsuits demanding the return of the church keys and a Yerevan apartment allocated to Asatryan by the Mother See.

The highest-ranking clergyman affected was Bishop Gevorg Saroyan, who was defrocked in January after suing to challenge his dismissal as Primate of the Masyatsotn Diocese.

Responding to criticism over the defrocking practices, the Mother See reported that during Karekin II’s 26-year tenure, 101 clergymen had been dismissed, including 21 directly by the Catholicos himself. At the same time, 491 clergymen were ordained.

Neither Armenian authorities, nor the defrocked clergy members have accepted Karekin II’s decisions, pointing towards his alleged illegitimacy as head of the Church.

Separately, Karekin II and the official Mother See have so far responded modestly to the accusations, avoiding offensive language, unlike their opponents, who have publicly used priests’ civilian names as well as obscene speech. That being said, some clergy have offered insults, calling Pashinyan ‘the chief madman of the country’ or ‘Judas’.

In official statements, Karekin II and the Mother See have described the authorities’ actions as ‘oppression’, ‘interference in internal affairs’, and an ‘anti-Church campaign’ that ‘poses a grave threat to our national unity, undermines [Armenia]’s internal stability, and strikes directly at Armenian statehood’.

The Church has also said Pashinyan’s initiative ‘directly violates’ the Armenian constitution and infringes on the rights of the Church, guaranteed both internationally and under Armenian law, and described the prosecutions of clergy as unjust.

Who’s winning the clergy’s loyalty?

Despite some clergy siding with Pashinyan, the majority have remained loyal to Karekin II or stayed silent.

Following the publication of the Church reform statement, the ruling Civil Contract party reported that another 20 or so clergy members had joined the initiative.

However, some of the 10 senior clergy members who signed the statement have been linked to past corruption cases and charges under Pashinyan’s government. In addition, one of them, Archbishop Hovnan Derderian, has since appeared to turn on Pashinyan by signing a statement urging Armenian authorities to ‘stop the persecution of the Church’. In February, he and 24 other high-ranking priests ‘reaffirm[ed] his loyalty to the Mother See and the Catholicos’.

At the same time, the latest survey by the International Republican Institute (IRI) found that the Church was the second institution Armenians were most satisfied with after the Armed Forces, with 39% very satisfied with both. However, satisfaction with the Church leadership was lower, with only 23% saying they were very satisfied.

Can Pashinyan succeed?

Despite the release of a reform agenda with an explicit goal of ousting Karekin II, the roadmap offers no clear explanation of how such a goal could be achieved. The Armenian Apostolic Church does not grant external actors any role in the election or removal of the Catholicos, leaving significant legal and procedural gaps in the proposal.

The Catholicos, as the Church clarifies, ‘is elected for life in the National-Church Assembly, ordained and consecrated by 12 bishops in the Mother See Cathedral’.

Additionally, Armenia is a secular state, and its constitution draws clear boundaries between the state and religious institutions. In particular, Article 17 states that ‘the freedom of activities of religious organisations shall be guaranteed’ in the country.

The constitution further limits the actions of state officials, stating that they ‘shall be entitled to perform only such actions for which they are authorised under the constitution or laws’.

Citing these articles, Pashinyan’s critics argue that these provisions prohibit direct government intervention in Church affairs, and that any such attempt by the executive to influence the removal of the Catholicos would exceed constitutional authority and violate the constitution.

Even so, Pashinyan vowed in January that he intended to make Karekin II reconsider and resign.

‘[Former Prime Minister] Serzh Sargsyan also had no intention of leaving, but he was forced to leave; the same will happen to Ktrich Nersisyan [Karekin II] — he will be forced to leave as well’.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has confirmed he ‘instructed’ the director of the Armenian Genocide Memorial to resign after she had given US Vice President JD Vance a book on the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict.

In a press briefing on Thursday, Pashinyan accused Edita Gzoyan, the director of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute Foundation, of going against his government’s foreign policy by giving Vance the book.

He reiterated that he believed that the Armenian government ‘should not continue’ the Karabakh Movement — a mass national movement which began in the 1980s to call on the Soviet authorities to transfer the majority-Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast from Soviet Azerbaijan to Soviet Armenia.

‘Giving a foreign guest a book about the Artsakh [Nagorno-Karabakh] issue, what does that mean?’ Pashinyan asked, further calling the action ‘provocative’ and ‘contradicting’ his government’s foreign policy.

‘In this country, how many people are capable of conducting foreign policy? […] Any state official in Armenia who makes a statement that contradicts the foreign policy pursued by the government should be dismissed from their position. What is there to discuss?’ Pashinyan continued.

He further stated that Armenia is a state, not ‘some kind of amateur club’.

Reports suggesting that Gzoyan was pressured to resign surfaced since early March, with the tabloid Hraparak reporting that the Education Ministry justified the move by claiming that Gzoyan ‘had not properly supervised’ ongoing renovations at the Armenian Genocide Memorial Complex.

The outlet at the same time underscored that the supervision of the restoration ‘does not fall within [Gzoyan’s] official responsibilities’.

Instead, media reports suggested that Gzoyan was dismissed after speaking with Vance about the massacres of Armenians in Azerbaijan at the at the onset of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in the 1980 in February during his visit to Yerevan and the Armenian Genocide Memorial Complex. She gave Vance the book during his visit to the memorial.

The Armenian Genocide Memorial complex also houses several monuments commemorating the victims of the massacres, which Gzoyan says she had shown Vance to emphasise ‘the connection between what happened and the Armenian Genocide’.

The Armenian authorities remain cautious in their official rhetoric about the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict as they navigate the ongoing normalisation process with Azerbaijan.

Pashinyan appeared to hint at his displeasure with Gzoyan’s action during an earlier parliamentary session, saying that ‘things have happened that would have been better if they hadn’t happened’.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has said the ‘biggest problem’ on Armenia’s path towards EU integration is the ‘frozen state of political dialogue between the EU and Georgia’.

Pashinyan had made the remarks during a speech at the EU Parliament.

Referencing the law adopted by the Armenian Parliament in March 2025 on launching the process of Armenia’s accession to the EU, Pashinyan said that this development came after Georgia received its own candidate status in December 2023.

‘This made Armenia’s EU membership prospect tangible, and it is our expectation and request that the EU–Georgia constructive process should develop. This is important for Armenia, just as important as for Georgia’.

Pashinyan’s comments on Wednesday sparked controversy, with some suggesting that he made the remarks at the request of the ruling Georgian Dream party in Tbilisi, particularly as he had visited the Georgian capital earlier in March and met with the Georgian leadership prior to his visit to Strasbourg.

Georgia’s authorities rushed to accuse the EU of halting the EU accession process following remarks by Pashinyan, despite having announced in December 2024 that they themselves were ‘temporarily suspending’ Georgia’s EU integration efforts.

‘Armenia’s prime minister delicately hinted to Eurobureaucracy that the unfair attitude and various types of attacks directed at Georgia should be reconsidered’, Tornike Cheishvili, the Deputy Chair of the Georgian Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee, told the Georgian pro-government media outlet Imedi.

He further accused the EU of ‘unilaterally’ suspending political dialogue with Georgia in  2024.

On Thursday, during a press briefing, Pashinyan rejected speculations that Georgian authorities had requested that he raise the issue in the West.

‘There was no request or appeal from the Georgian side, but on the other hand, we have shared agendas, and we are working around those agendas. I voiced my concern from the podium of the European Parliament because we are genuinely concerned about the situation that exists in relations between the EU and Georgia, and it worries us’, Pashinyan said.

Prayer for ‘wisdom’ in Iran war

Pashinyan also touched on the war in Iran and the consequent developments in the Middle East, highlighting Armenia’s good relations with almost all sides involved in the conflict.

Pashinyan called Iran Armenia’s ‘good friend, our thousand-year-old neighbour’, citing the developing relations with the US, and referred to the UAE, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Jordan, Lebanon, Bahrain, and Syria as Armenia’s ‘good partners’.

Pashinyan noted that his government was  ‘pained’ by the ongoing war; however, he added that Armenia could have no significant impact in the conflict.

‘Against the backdrop of such an international crisis of such magnitude, we are a small, modest state, and we can only pray for the repose of the souls of all the victims and for the wisdom of our partner leaders to find diplomatic solutions as soon as possible’.

Route to connect Nakhchivan to Azerbaijan ahead of TRIPP

During his speech, Pashinyan praised the achievements of the peace process with Azerbaijan, the turning point of which was the August 2025 Washington Summit, which saw the initialling of a peace treaty as well as an agreement to establish the Trump Route (TRIPP), intended to connect Azerbaijan to its exclave Nakhchivan through Armenia.

Pashinyan noted that for eight months ‘complete peace has been established on the Armenia–Azerbaijan border’, and said that since the summit, cargo trains had arrived in Armenia through Azerbaijan.

Pashinyan added that Armenia had in turn announced its readiness ‘to ensure transit’ from Azerbaijan to Turkey and vice versa, though neither Ankara nor Baku have accepted his country’s offer.

‘I assume that this is because they think that such a solution might delay the implementation of the Trump Route project’, Pashinyan said, rejecting such concerns by saying Armenia had ‘no reason’ to delay its implementation.

He also presented a new proposal to provide a road connecting Azerbaijan to Nakhchivan using Armenia’s existing infrastructure.

‘This proposal of ours is not intended to delay, disrupt, or forget the Washington agreements in any way, and I say this officially. We are making these proposals because we ourselves, as I mentioned above, are using the Azerbaijani railway in a slightly alternative way’, Pashinyan said.

Azerbaijan uses Iranian territory to reach Nakhchivan. However, a recent drone strike on Nakhchivan, which Azerbaijan claims came from Iran, led to the temporary closure of transport links between the two countries, with speculation emerging in Armenia that it could serve as an alternative route.

Church leads ‘war party’ in Armenia

From the podium, Pashinyan also addressed the ongoing confrontation between his government and the Armenian Apostolic Church, which has escalated since May 2025, accusing the Church of leading a ‘war party’ in Armenia.

‘The reality is that some clergymen, who cynically violated all the rules of spiritual good conduct, thus making themselves vulnerable to foreign special services […] have assumed the leadership of the war party in Armenia, consolidating around them the former leaders of Armenia, some forces associated with them, some pro-Russian and pro-Belarusian oligarchs, and are trying to sacrifice Armenia’s independence to the interests of third countries’, Pashinyan claimed.

He further vowed not to allow ‘a new conflict’ in Armenia and said that in the parliamentary election on 7 June, ‘our democracy must make peace irreversible, and then, with peace, democracy will become irreversible’.