Pashinyan: I need a Catholicos who will not obey foreign special service lieutenant

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated during the Q&A session with Cabinet members in Parliament that he does not need a Catholicos who will obey him, but one who will not obey a “foreign special service lieutenant.” He made the remark in response to accusations from “Hayastan” faction deputy Anna Grigoryan, who claimed that the government seeks a church subordinate to the Prime Minister.

“I do not need a Catholicos who will obey me. I need a Catholicos who will not obey a senior lieutenant of a foreign special service and will not report to lieutenants of a foreign special service on a daily basis. I have no such aspirations,” Pashinyan said.

Pashinyan stated that Armenian Apostolic Church “has been reduced to ruins” during the tenure of Catholicos Karekin II, adding that the absence of a universal choir in churches shows that proper liturgies are not being served.

Addressing the opposition, he said: “You are not faced with the situation that when the narrow elite is a millionaire, a significant part of priests lives on the verge of poverty. Armenian churches are in ruins, proper service is not provided, priests live in poverty, and spiritual life is absent.”

He accused Catholicos of All Armenians Karekin II and his supporters of working against the Armenian Apostolic Church. “For them, the church was, is and wants to remain just a tool of fraud. We will not allow this. Ktrich Nersisyan (the secular name of the Catholicos) must leave — there is no alternative. Even senior and junior lieutenants, captains, majors, even generals of foreign special services will not save him,” Pashinyan said.