Garegin II

Garegin II has served as Catholicos of All Armenians — the supreme head of the Armenian Apostolic Church — since 1999. His tenure has coincided with some of the most turbulent periods in modern Armenian history, including the 2020 Nagorno Karabakh war, the political upheaval that followed, and an escalating confrontation with the Pashinyan government over the church’s role in Armenian society.

Groong episodes featuring Garegin II examine his public statements during national crises, his relationship with the diaspora, and the government’s effort to reduce the church’s institutional influence. The arrest of senior clergy allied with and answerable to the Catholicosate in 2025 — including Archbishops Bagrat Galstanyan, Mikayel Ajapahyan, and Arshak Khachatryan, and Bishop Mkrtich Proshyan — has placed Garegin II at the center of the most serious church-state confrontation in the post-Soviet history of independent Armenia.