They protested vehemently as Pashinian repeatedly referred to the supreme head of the Armenian Apostolic Church by his lay name, Ktrich Nersisian, while presenting his government’s five-year policy program to the National Assembly. Deputies representing the main opposition Strong Armenia alliance banged their fists on their desks after each such reference. They eventually left the parliament floor in protest.
“Your Catholicos is unholy,” Pashinian told them. “If you don't mind a person sitting in the Mother See having a sexual life, bang your fists as much as you want.”
“Leave the Catholicos alone,” shouted Gegham Manukian of the Hayastan alliance, the second opposition group represented in the recently elected parliament.
Pashinian has used different lines of attack on the church’s top clergy since he began his campaign to oust Garegin in June 2025. He said until December that Garegin and other top clerics at odds with him must go because they had secret sex affairs in breach of their vows of celibacy. He then accused them of spying for a foreign country, presumably Russia.
The premier gave a new reason for his campaign during Monday’s parliament debate on the government program. He said that Armenian priests pray for the Republic of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) on Garegin’s orders during Sunday masses. They are thus turning the church into a “war propaganda institution,” he charged.
“This is one of the reasons why the de facto head of the Apostolic Church should be called to rest,” added Pashinian.
Garegin insisted in June that the Armenian Church is simply asserting the rights of Karabakh’s displaced Armenian population.
“War is not what we are calling for,” he told reporters. “Peace must be anchored in justice and mutual, not unilateral, protection of rights, and not as a result of giving up the interests of our people … We must make every effort so that justice is done to the people of Artsakh,”
Pashinian began pressuring Garegin to resign in June 2025 shortly after the Catholicos accused Azerbaijan of committing ethnic cleansing in Karabakh and illegally occupying Armenian border areas during an international conference in Switzerland. Pashinian’s detractors say he wants to please Azerbaijan or neutralize a key source of opposition to his unilateral concessions to Armenia’s arch-foe.
In its action plan presented by Pashinian to lawmakers, the Armenian government officially pledges to “ensure the removal” of the Catholicos and “carry out the election” of his temporary replacement through an unspecified “established procedure.” The Armenian opposition and some legal experts see this as a gross violation of Armenian constitutional provisions guaranteeing the autonomy of the ancient church and its separation from the state. In an August 7 statement, the World Council of Churches (WCC) similarly deplored the “undue interference” in its internal affairs.