In recent months, it is well known to all that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and his government’s judicial bodies have been rapidly stepping up offensive actions against the high-ranking clergy of the Armenian Apostolic Church, and in particular the Catholicos of All Armenians.
This unprecedented behavior began initially as a result of the “indignation” personally felt by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who asserts that he is a faithful follower of the Armenian Apostolic Church, as a result of the alleged moral failures in the personal lives of some of the clergy of our church. However, the measures being implemented very quickly began to take the form of clearly state-backed crude initiatives to directly and physically intervene in the life of the Armenian Apostolic Church and the clergy who serve it.
When the prime minister now goes to attend a liturgy every Sunday in a different church, surrounded by a police squad, and the media beforehand announces, in violation of the basic rules of our church liturgy, that the liturgist will omit the mentioning of the name of the Catholicos of All Armenians on that day, when the unprecedented arrests of high-ranking clergymen, often with highly suspect facts, continue, for acts they supposedly committed several years ago, it has become obvious that this reprehensible behavior no longer has anything to do with disquietude felt by the prime minister personally as a regular Armenian church “believer.”
What is being done is a clear violation of the requirements of the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia, and a crude and unauthorized interference by the authorities in the life of the church.
Informed Armenians naturally follow with deep indignation this sad crisis taking place in Armenia, which has gradually become destructive for the entire Armenian nation.
Our press recently made two appeals, first demanding that the Armenian authorities stop the practice of detaining clergy and laity without the basic formalities of a regular trial, thus violating the standards of international justice. This is a practice characteristic of despotic countries. We also demanded that they respect the laws of state non-interference in church affairs embodied in the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia. Secondly, and with equal emphasis we asked the Mother See to implement the requirements of our Church’s canons, by convening episcopal and then national ecclesiastical assemblies as soon as possible in order to examine and when necessary, adopt reforms in the church laws that regulate the operations of the church.
However, the extreme gravity of the situation prevailing in Armenia currently was revealed more vividly when, though the Catholicos of All Armenians took a first step in an exemplary manner by inviting the Episcopal Assembly to convene on December 10 in the Mother See, the convening of that council failed. Indeed the majority of the bishops in the worldwide dioceses of the Armenian Apostolic Church understandably felt themselves threatened within Armenia, so that, according to information received from the Mother See, “taking into consideration the current situation in Armenia, in particular the repressions carried out against the clergy, including arrests, in response to the request of the bishops, the convening of the Episcopal Assembly by the order of the Catholicos of All Armenians is temporarily postponed.”
This is how unfortunately, the stubbornly unconstitutional, undemocratic and dictatorial practices of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and his government in this matter, have clearly reduced Armenia to a disgraceful level in the context of the civilized nations of the world.
While preparing this article analyzing the current situation, Pashinyan’s latest statement appeared, in which he openly confirms his decision to trample not only on the national constitution, but also on the bylaws of the Armenian Apostolic Church, which has a global structure, and to illegally, with his forceful intervention, remove the Catholicos of All Armenians, who had been elected by the entire Armenian nation, and illegally appoint an unlawful locum tenens and generate new bylaws, all of that absolutely illegally.
This will certainly turn a lamentable national crisis inevitably into a global one. Will the Armenian Apostolic Church, which has a global structure with constituent clerical and lay components, be forced to resort to the intervention of international human rights bodies and other appropriate institutions?
Despite all this, even at this stage, we directly call upon Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and his administration to immediately and profoundly reform their current, clearly unacceptable and nationally damaging behavior.
First of all, they must release all clergy and lay prisoners who have been detained for political reasons without following internationally accepted rules of justice, and they must officially declare that they will cease this practice.
The authorities must also declare that they will henceforth rigorously limit their actions to the requirements of the law, as delineated by the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia.
We wish also to express our appreciation for the exemplary initiative of the Catholicos of All Armenians to call for the Episcopal Assembly of the Armenian Apostolic Church, which must be convened in calm and unfettered conditions guaranteed by the authorities, necessarily in the Mother See, with the aim of preparing for according to the church bylaws, the convening of a National Ecclesiastical Assembly, where as needed reforms may be adopted in the canons of the church.
We consider the immediate implementation of the aforementioned steps necessary so that every Armenian, whether resident in Armenia or in the diaspora, clergy or laity, can feel completely safe in traveling to Armenia and feel completely free to participate in any and all legal events and meetings aimed at improving the spiritual or physical life of Armenians, without feeling exposed to the threat of illegal secret recordings.
We demand all of this unequivocally, for the sake and in the name of the supreme interests of our church and the Armenian nation.
Armenian Democratic Liberal Party (ADLP) Coordinated Press
Azg (Armenia)
Abaka (Canada)
Arev (Egypt)
Zartonk (Lebanon)
Nor Ashkharh (Greece)
Baikar (USA)
Armenian Mirror-Spectator (USA)
Sardarabad (Buenos Aires)
December 10, 2025
