Why Pashinyan Attacks the Armenian Church

Pashinyan’s campaign against the Armenian Apostolic Church intensified after Catholicos Karekin II spoke in Bern about the rights of Artsakh’s ethnically cleansed Armenian population and preservation of Armenian cultural heritage. The regime has since dragged the Catholicos through courts on flimsy charges of defrocking priests, an action entirely within ecclesiastical authority. State involvement in internal church disputes represents a dramatic break from secular governance.

Recently, Pashinyan revealed the core grievance: Armenian priests, under the Catholicos’ direction, continue praying that God preserve Artsakh. He labeled this as incitement to war. Martirosyan argues this disclosure reveals the true motivation behind the church campaign. It is not about reform or modernization but about controlling an institution that has independent reach into the diaspora and maintains moral witness to the displacement of 150,000 Armenian inhabitants from Artsakh in September 2023.

For Turkey and Azerbaijan, the Armenian Apostolic Church has long been a strategic liability. As an independent, all-Armenian institution with global influence, it can mobilize diaspora support and amplify Armenian grievances. By weakening the Catholicos and subordinating the church to state control, Pashinyan serves this external agenda while simultaneously promoting his ‘Fourth Republic’ vision. The church would become a docile state institution, cut off from diaspora influence, unable to speak truth about Armenian suffering or heritage. Martirosyan compares this to Henry VIII’s assertion of royal control over the English church, not French secularism. Pashinyan does not want separation of church and state; he wants a church he can control. Without the church’s independent voice and diaspora connections, Armenia becomes isolated, weakened, and easier to integrate into Turkic regional projects.