Pashinyan May Soon Declare Himself The New Catholicos of All Armenians — By Harut Sassounian

With each passing day, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan is causing further damage to the Armenian Apostolic Church and the reputation of Armenia around the world as the first Christian nation. His actions are a gross violation of the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia.

Without any authority, Pashinyan outlined last week on his Facebook page a “Road map for the renewal of the Holy Armenian Apostolic Church.” He indicated that “after removal” of Catholicos Karekin II, the “primary task” of the future locum tenens is “to organize the process of adopting the new regulations of the Apostolic Church in Armenia.”

Pashinyan even provided detailed steps for his suggested “new Church regulations”:

— Rules for the good conduct of the clergy and guarantees for its implementation.

— Financial transparency of the Church and guarantees for its implementation.

— The necessity for the Church to be apolitical and guarantees for its implementation.

— Compliance of the Church with Armenia’s tax regulations. Taxes paid by the Church will be returned to the Church!

— Clergy to benefit from the government pension fund and health insurance.

— Election of a new Catholicos of All Armenians on the basis of the new rulebook.

To make his interference in the Church complete, Pashinyan suggested that, at the request of the locum tenens, the government “will provide advisory support to the work on the development of the draft [Church] rules.”

During his visit to Berlin last week, Pashinyan denigrated the Armenian Church and the Catholicos in front of the prestigious German Council on Foreign Relations. Disseminating internal Armenian disputes to an international audience is a grave error and contrary to Armenia’s best interests.

Pashinyan raised several inappropriate church-related issues in Germany.

1) He accused the clergy, not just the Catholicos, of being “more vulnerable to external influence and, forgive me for phrasing it this way, can turn them into a tool for external influence.” The Prime Minister has hurled this serious accusation at various members of the clergy, including the Catholicos. Pashinyan even told the Armenian Parliament last week that the Catholicos obeys “a senior lieutenant of a foreign intelligence service” and reports “daily to lieutenants of a foreign intelligence service.” However, Justice Minister Srbuhi Galyan contradicted her boss by saying that she has no such information. Pashinyan’s baseless claim goes beyond the issue of the moral behavior of the clergy. Being a foreign agent is a serious violation of Armenian law. If Pashinyan has any evidence, he has the obligation to submit it to the courts for prosecution. Making such a charge without any evidence is libelous, for which the Catholicos should sue Pashinyan.

2) Pashinyan told the German audience: “No one knows how our Church is funded, how much money is entering, how it is spent.” Since the government knows about the personal lives of the clergy, then it surely knows the amounts and sources of those funds.

3) Pashinyan went on to condemn “some of the leaders of the clergy” for living “in shameful luxury, while some ordinary clergy live in poverty.” If this is true, it is none of the Prime Minister’s or the government’s business. Once again, he is violating the constitutional provision separating Church and State.

4) Pashinyan spoke about the need to reform the Church even though he has no right to interfere in internal church affairs. The Church has its own established procedures for dealing with such matters. The Prime Minister’s main responsibility is running the government; he has no authority or mandate to reform the Church. As a Church member, he can express his personal opinion, but he has gone far beyond that. He initiated a whole campaign to depose the Catholicos, proposed specific Church reforms, denigrated the clergy, and imprisoned several high-ranking clergymen.

Last week, Pashinyan made another bizarre suggestion on his Facebook page. He wants Church choirs to sing the national anthem of the Republic of Armenia “in all churches, at 10:55 am, right before celebrating Mass.” By saying “all churches,” it is not clear if he is including the Armenian Catholic and Evangelical churches. He also did not clarify if he is including Armenian Apostolic Churches outside Armenia. One can imagine the hostile reaction of the Turkish government should the choirs of Armenian churches in Istanbul sing the Armenian, not the Turkish, national anthem.

If Pashinyan is such a nationalist and a faithful follower of the Armenian Church, why does he not start his weekly Cabinet meetings with the national anthem and a prayer? Why doesn’t his parliamentary majority open each session with the national anthem and a prayer? I suggest that before Pashinyan starts ordering the Church what to do, he should institute those changes in his own government.

In a follow-up video on his Facebook page, Pashinyan suggested that “the placement of the tricolor flag at the entrance or inside the churches of the Republic of Armenia should be discussed.” Pashinyan not only wants to change the Catholicos, but also what the choir should sing in the Church and what flag it should display. This is a completely unwarranted interference in internal Church affairs. He should concentrate on his real job — running the government — which he has miserably failed to do.

Prime Minister Pashinyan, a man who cannot even manage a doghouse, may soon declare himself the next Catholicos of All Armenians.