By Xandie (Alexandra) Kuenning

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has suggested that the choirs in all Armenian Apostolic churches perform the national anthem prior to Sunday morning services. The proposal comes amidst increasing tensions between the government and the Church ahead of the 2026 parliamentary elections.

Pashinyan first wrote a short post on Facebook on Sunday evening with his suggestion, writing that the Armenian Apostolic Church was established ‘by the state, by state decision’ in 301 AD.

On Monday morning, he followed up with a short video during which he discussed his reasoning further, pointing to a specific passage in the liturgical text.

‘There is such a passage in the text of the liturgy of the Armenian Apostolic Church, and with it the priests, in fact, start the liturgy: “O Council, deep, inaccessible, without beginning, who adorned your upper state, the order of the fiery ones, in the veil of unapproachable light, with unsurpassed glory”. In other words, we are talking about the upper state, about the state. And the sounding of the national anthem before the liturgy will establish the connection between the upper and inner states’, Pashinyan argued.

He added that the presence of the Armenian state flag at the entrance or inside churches should also be discussed, noting it was an ‘accepted practice’ in a number of other countries.

In recent weeks, Pashinyan has been attending services every Sunday across Armenia, as well as frequently sharing Psalms on social media and emphasising Christian ethics in public.

On Sunday, Parliamentary Speaker Alen Simonyan spoke to journalists in Gyumri about the situation, claiming that there was only one solution to the conflict between the government and the Church.

‘That solution is inevitable. The problem today is that Ktrich Nersisyan [Catholicos Karekin II] does not understand that with his behaviour he is causing great harm to the Armenian Apostolic Church and the state, trying to fight against the inevitable’, Simonyan said.

He also suggested that the next liturgy should be held in the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin.

‘This is my personal opinion, I don’t know what the Prime Minister thinks about it, but I think he came to spend his time there’, Simonyan said.

On 5 December, another high-ranking member of the clergy — Archbishop Arshak Khachatryan — was detained amidst the escalating rift between the Church and the government. Khachatryan is accused of arranging the planting of drugs in the backpack of a demonstrator at a 2018 protest against Karekin II.

The detentions began in October, when Armenia’s security services raided several diocesan offices and detained over a dozen clerics, including Bishop Mkrtich Proshyan, a cousin of the Catholicos, on charges of inciting unrest. Those arrests, too, were condemned by the church as state intimidation.

The Catholic­osate has repeatedly accused Pashinyan’s administration of encroaching on its independence and using state agencies to undermine it. Pashinyan, for his part, has accused church officials of meddling in politics, aligning with opposition forces, and threatening the country’s stability.