Pashinian has faced such accusations from the church as well as the Armenian opposition and other critics ever since he began pressuring Catholicos Garegin II to resign in June. They intensified after he signed on Sunday a joint statement with renegade bishops in which he pledged to keep up the pressure in in his official capacity as prime minister. He claimed until then that he is campaigning against Garegin as an ordinary follower of the church.
The critics say that the campaign violates constitutional provisions guaranteeing the autonomy of the ancient church and its separation from the state. They also argue that the powers of Armenian state officials are defined by the constitution and other laws and that changing the heads of religious organizations is not among them.
Pashinian scoffed at these arguments when he spoke with journalists after chairing a weekly cabinet meeting in Yerevan.
“Where is it written about the prime minister’s powers?” he said. “For example, does the prime minister have the authority to hold news briefings? … Look it up. It’s interesting to know where it is written.”
“I bridge the institution of the prime minister with the institution of the citizen, with the institution of the follower of the Armenian Apostolic Holy Church, with the institution of the New Testament, with the institution of prayer,” declared Pashinian.
Neither the constitution nor an Armenian law on the government’s structure and activities says anything about such a spiritual mission.
Last month, Pashinian effectively admitted ordering the National Security Service (NSS), the former Armenian branch of the Soviet KGB secret police, to try to censor church liturgies attended by him. He also said earlier that intelligence briefings presented to him by the NSS contain sensitive details of the private lives of Armenian priests.
Some of them are reportedly among the ten archbishops and bishops who openly added their voice to Pashinian’s demands for Garegin’s resignation in November. In his joint statement with them, Pashinian again stopped short of urging supporters to converge on the main church cathedral in Echmiadzin adjacent to Garegin’s official residence in a bid to force the Catholicos into resignation.
The pro-government bishops held such a gathering outside the cathedral on December 18. But its participants were greatly outnumbered by thousands of other people who rallied there in support of Garegin. The latter made clear on Tuesday that the church remains “firm and unshaken” in the face of Pashinian’s “repressions.”
Pashinian on Thursday declined to say just how he now hopes to depose the defiant Catholicos.
“You say that Ktrich Nersisian (Garegin’s original name) has no intention of leaving,” he told the press. “We are going to do something to make him change that intention.”