Pashinyan is Emulating Talaat and Stalin In Persecuting the Armenian Clergy — By Harut Sassounian

With each passing day, Armenia is sliding further into dictatorship. The vulgar, even pornographic, language Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has used against the Catholicos of All Armenians and other senior clergy is utterly unbecoming of a head of government. Facebook recently deleted one of his posts for its offensive language, according to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

The Prime Minister has jailed dozens of political opponents as well as two archbishops, and sent his security forces to storm the Armenian Church’s headquarters in Etchmiadzin.

To demonstrate Pashinyan’s abuse of the law, consider his politically motivated order to arrest and imprison Archbishop Mikael Ajapahyan, the Primate of the Diocese of Shirak. The Archbishop has been one of the Prime Minister’s most vocal critics. On Sept. 26, 2023, during an interview, Ajapahyan called for “a military revolution” to overthrow Pashinyan, which some might interpret as a violation of Armenian law. However, after a months-long investigation, the Prosecutor General’s Office issued an official letter on April 30, 2024, finding no legal basis to charge the Archbishop with a crime. In a normal country, that should have been the end of the story, but not in Armenia.

Last week, following the Prime Minister’s illegal interference in the judiciary, a court issued a warrant for the Archbishop’s arrest for remarks previously deemed lawful. In his desperate attempt to silence dissent, Pashinyan has now declared that the Archbishop did violate the law, ordering police to arrest him. Although the Prime Minister constantly boasts that Armenia is a democracy, his actions expose its drift toward dictatorship. He is also flagrantly violating the constitutional separation of church and state. The celibacy of the Catholicos is an internal church matter, which is none of the Prime Minister’s business.

Meanwhile, Pashinyan’s grotesque Facebook rants have included vulgar and pornographic taunts, such as inviting the Catholicos and his spokesman to his office to view his genitals to prove he is not circumcised. These posts raise serious questions about the Prime Minister’s mental stability. In another puzzling posting, he suggested that from July 1 to 5, he would refrain from using swear words or personal attacks, shifting to “civilized and respectful debate, based only on verified facts.” This admission contradicts his self-proclaimed image of adherence to Christian values, particularly since he is the same man who has written a pornographic book, titled: “The Other Side of the Earth.”

Desperate to cling to power after next year’s parliamentary elections, Pashinyan is using every means, legal or illegal, to silence his opponents, whether clerics or politicians. Since Catholicos Karekin II had called for his resignation, the Prime Minister now aims to replace him with a more compliant church leader. He is resorting to such unsavory tactics since his ratings have plummeted from 80% seven years ago to 8% today, suggesting that he may not be able to retain his seat after the 2026 elections.

As an internal threat far more perilous than any external enemy, Pashinyan has made repeated concessions to Azerbaijan and Turkey that jeopardize Armenia’s future. Regrettably, he is following in the footsteps of Ottoman Sultans, Russian Czars and Soviet commissars.

Everyone knows the Ottoman Empire’s systematic persecutions and massacres of Armenians in Western Armenia and Cilicia, culminating in the Armenian Genocide of 1915, which began with the execution of Istanbul’s Armenian elite, and the butchering of thousands of Armenian clergymen.

Here is a brief list of Russian Czars’ and Soviet leaders’ attacks on the Armenian Apostolic Church and its clergy:

— On September 2, 1804, Russian troops plundered the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, returning in April 1805 for a second looting.

— On October 1, 1827, Russian General Ivan Paskevich persecuted Catholicos Nerses Ashtaraketsi.

— On March 11, 1836, Czar Nicholas I imposed restrictions on the Armenian Church’s autonomy.

— On June 12, 1903, Czar Nicholas II ordered the confiscation of Church’s properties. After two years of Armenian protests and resistance, the Czar reversed his decree in 1905.

— On April 6, 1938, Soviet agents strangled Catholicos Khoren I in his apartment in the Veharan. Dozens of Armenian clergymen were executed.

Though the Ottoman and Soviet empires have vanished, the Armenian Church endures. The tragedy is that today, the Armenian state has become the oppressor.

Last week, Pashinyan deployed hundreds of policemen and masked national security agents to the holy grounds of the Catholicosate, only to withdraw after confrontations with worshippers. We were fortunate that no shots were fired from either side, otherwise, a bloodbath or civil war might have ensued.

Now, as Karekin II refuses to comply with Pashinyan’s order to resign, the Prime Minister may dispatch security forces to Etchmiadzin to arrest His Holiness, a move that would provoke nationwide and global outcry from Armenians and the entire Christian world, including the Vatican and the World Council of Churches. This would be an appalling stain on the legacy of the world’s first Christian nation.

Instead of trying to resolve Armenian’s existential threats, Pashinyan is busy writing vulgar Facebook posts and attacking the Armenian Church and clergy. It is he, not the Catholicos, who should resign.