The Armenian Prime Minister announced Aug. 24 an investigation into what it claims is a “systemic crisis” of the Armenian Apostolic Church, just a few days after his administration announced a government-led reform of the country’s majority Church, including a change of its leadership.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said Monday, in a speech presenting his new government program in the country’s National Assembly, that “a report is being prepared on the deep systemic crisis that has emerged in the Armenian Apostolic Holy Church, laying out dozens of facts.”
Within the reform program, the government signalled that it would move to install an “interim Catholicos” at the head of the Church.
Armenia, a country roughly the size of the U.S. state of Maryland, has a population of around three million people. It is bordered by Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Iran to the south. Around 95% of the population belongs to the Armenian Apostolic Church and 0.6% belong to the Catholic Church.
The Armenian Apostolic Church is one of the Oriental Orthodox Churches, a roughly 70 million-strong communion that also includes the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and the Coptic Orthodox Church.
The Oriental Orthodox Churches diverged from the Chalcedonian tradition — represented today by the Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Churches — after the Council of Chalcedon in 451 A.D., largely because of differences over formulas used to define Christ’s nature.
In his address this week, Pashinyan also called Karekin II by his baptismal name, Ktrich Nersisyan, which observers in the country have interpreted as a thinly veiled way to show that he doesn’t recognize Karekin as the rightful head of the Armenian Church, something he has publicly said in the past.
“If Karekin II or Ktrich Nersisyan accepts the reform agenda of the Armenian Apostolic Church, I solemnly declare from this podium that I will sit down and discuss that agenda with him with the utmost respect,” Pashinyan said.
“How can we tolerate it when our holiest of holies is afflicted? Let us put everything else aside: whether you want to call him the Catholicos, Karekin II, or Ktrich Nersisyan, beyond all that, there are facts that every citizen of the Republic of Armenia and every believer knows,” Pashinyan added, referring to allegations he had made in the past about Karekin II having fathered a child.
Member of Parliament Narek Karapetyan, one of the opposition’s leaders in the assembly, responded to Pashinyan’s allegations by saying that 97% of Armenian citizens trust the Armenian Apostolic Church.
“That is precisely where the problem lies: 97% of the citizens of the Republic of Armenia believe, while the head of the Church does not believe in God at all, has no spiritual life, has renounced his covenant with God, and this breach of the covenant has been imposed on all of us. I am not prepared to bear responsibility for that breach of the covenant,” Pashinyan said in response to Karapetyan.
On Aug. 20, Pashinyan presented his administration’s 2026-2031 government program, including measures to reform the Armenian Apostolic Church, such as the removal of Karekin II as head of the Church and holding a new election for Catholicos of All Armenians.
“Reforming the Armenian Apostolic Holy Church is a vital necessity for addressing the issue of having a value-based spiritual life. The agenda of reforming the Armenian Apostolic Holy Church serves to bring the Church into the field of canonicity and exclude the politicization of the Church,” the program states.
The program adds five measures to “to ensure spiritual security, exclude attempts by external forces to turn the Armenian Apostolic Holy Church into a foothold for hybrid warfare, and reform the Armenian Apostolic Holy Church.”
The first is to remove the “de facto head of the Armenian Apostolic Holy Church,” followed by the appointment of an “interim Catholicos, in accordance with the established procedure.” Third, the program calls for the “adoption of a charter for the Armenian Apostolic Holy Church will be ensured, establishing mechanisms for upholding the stipulated principles, ensuring financial transparency and the good conduct of clergy.”
Afterwards, the program says, the election of a new Catholicos of All Armenians will be held, and lastly that “the government will also undertake to include clergy in the state system of social guarantees and ensure transparency in the financing of the Church.”
In a press conference after the publication of the government program, Pashinyan said that he would “soon present a detailed report with exhaustive answers” about allegations of links between the Armenian Church and foreign forces, especially Russia, a claim that Pashinyan has repeated in the past.
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The government announcement follows the beginning of the trial against Karekin II and five other Armenian bishops in early August.
Karekin II and five other Armenian bishops are accused of disobeying a court decision ordering the reinstatement of Bishop Gevorg Saroyan, an ally of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who was dismissed from his post and laicized by Karekin II after repeatedly calling for the Karekin’s ouster.
The other five bishops are Archbishop Nathan Hovhannisyan, Archbishop Haykazun Najaryan, Bishop Vahan Hovhannesyan, Bishop Edgar Hakobyan, and Bishop Artur Hakobyan.
If found guilty, the bishops could face two years in prison.
Bishop Saroyan was among a group of 10 Armenian bishops who showed their support for a controversial 2025 “roadmap” introduced by Pashinyan to reform the Armenian Apostolic Church, which called for new statutes in the church, and a reform of governance, which he said was meant to ensure greater transparency. The roadmap also called for the election of a new ecclesiastical leader in place of Karekin II.
Support for that plan saw Saroyan dismissed from office by Karekin II in January.
When announcing his dismissal, the Church cited Saroyan’s “abuse of office, failure to fulfil the duties incumbent upon the primate, as well as instances of coercion and pressure exercised against the clergy of the diocese.”
But a court in Armenia ordered the Church to reinstate Saroyan the same month. Karekin II responded by laicizing Saroyan.
Prosecutors then opened a criminal case against Karekin II on Feb. 14 and barred him from leaving the country, accusing him of obstructing the court order.
Pashinyan, who has served as prime minister since 2018, posted a video in early January in which he read aloud a statement setting out his “roadmap” for the reform of the Armenian Apostolic Church.
The video showed eight Armenian Orthodox bishops signing the document at Pashinyan’s residence. Two others, who were not present, also endorsed it.
Karekin II’s legal representative described the move as “direct interference in the internal affairs of the Church.”
The root of the conflict is a dispute about the role of the Church in Armenian public affairs, with Pashinyan accusing Karekin II of having problematic foreign ties, and Karekin suggesting the prime minister is responsible for war losses in the country’s long-simmering conflict with neighboring Azerbaijan.
In December 2025, Pashinyan accused Karekin II of having ties to “foreign intelligence services,” through his brother, who is also an Armenian bishop serving in Russia.
In June 2025, Pashinyan also accused Karekin II of fathering a daughter, saying that “If it turns out that Karekin II has indeed broken his vow of celibacy and has a child, he cannot remain the Catholicos of All Armenians.”
Pashinyan then said that the Armenian government “must have a decisive voice in the election of the Catholicos of All Armenians” and that candidates “must undergo an integrity check.”
Pashinyan’s hostility against the Armenian Church has grown after several senior officials, including Karekin II himself have asked for his resignation and issued critical pastoral letters against him.
In 2024, Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan launched a campaign of civil disobedience called the Holy Struggle, including a large rally in the country’s capital on May 9, 2024 with Karekin II’s support. While Galstanyan said the movement was not political, calls for Pashinyan’s resignation brought together various opposition groups.
The Church issued strong criticisms of the government and called for Pashinyan’s resignation after the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh, a region disputed between Azerbaijan and Armenia. After another major offensive in 2023, Azerbaijan took control of the region and displaced hundreds of thousands of ethnic Armenians, prompting Karekin II to call for Pashinyan’s resignation once again.
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The current tensions between the Armenian government and Church will undoubtedly raise diplomatic and ecumenical flags within the Vatican, even if Catholics represent a tiny percentage of the Armenian population. The Holy See certainly has diplomatic interests in the region though, especially in neighboring Azerbaijan.
The Vatican has been criticized for its ties to the Azeri regime, which is accused by human rights organizations of ethnically-based persecution of Armenian Christians in the Nagorno Karabakh region.
Azerbaijan signed agreements in September with the Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital and the Vatican Apostolic Library and Apostolic Archives, alarming critics who accuse the Azeri regime of human rights abuses against the Armenian minority and of practicing “caviar diplomacy” by using its cultural and economic power to shape Vatican policy in the South Caucasus region.
The conference was entitled “Christianity in Azerbaijan: History and Modernity.” But Armenian activists and Church leaders called the event part of a broader campaign to erase Armenian Christian heritage from disputed territories.
Promotional materials for the conference included distinctly Azeri reads on West Asian history, including a display of the medieval Armenian monastery of Dadivank, with the claim that it belonged to the “Caucasian Albanian” culture, an Azeri government claim widely disputed by historians.
“This has no basis in reality. They say these are Caucasian Albanian churches, but Caucasian Albanians disappeared in the 8th century,” Orthodox Archbishop Vicken Aykazian, ecumenical director of the Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church of America, told The Pillar back in April 2025.
Despite these controversies, the conference received a letter of congratulations from Cardinal Claudio Gugerotti, prefect of the Dicastery for the Eastern Churches.
Months before the 2020 offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan’s First Lady Mehriban Aliyeva was awarded the Order of Pope Pius IX at the Vatican.
Ilqar Mukhtarov, Azerbaijan’s ambassador to the Holy See, received the same distinction on April 3, 2025.
The Heydar Aliyev Foundation lists the Vatican Apostolic Library and the Vatican Museums among its partners and several restoration projects that it is supporting at the Vatican.
According to Italian outlet Irpi Media, the donations amounted to 640,000 euros (around $730,000). But an Azeri official said publicly in 2020 that the figure was “over 1 million euros.” Many of the restoration works came after 2020, suggesting the actual sum could be even higher.