Analyst says Pashinyan’s church reform plan risks ‘state intrusion’

Political analyst Suren Surenyants accused Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan of launching a coordinated state intrusion into the Armenian Apostolic Church, warning that his recent proposals undermine the church’s autonomy.

In a Facebook post on Tuesday, Surenyants said Pashinyan’s statements on placing the national flag inside churches, performing the national anthem before liturgies, influencing the selection of a locum tenens and involving the government in drafting a new canon law amount to “unlawful state interference”.

He noted that Pashinyan has repeatedly urged Catholicos Karekin II to resign, accused him of breaking monastic vows and even of “acting as an agent”, while four senior clergy remain in detention, charges the church calls fabricated and politically motivated.

According to Surenyants, the prime minister’s “roadmap” aims to reshape the church’s leadership by first altering internal rules under government influence and then electing a new Catholicos under those rules. He argued that mandatory use of state symbols in religious ceremonies violates both church canon law and Armenia’s constitutional principle of a secular state.

Surenyants said the pattern of criminal cases against clergy, public accusations, pressure to adopt state symbols and planned revisions to church governance shows an effort to bring the church under political control, threatening its long-standing independence and the country’s institutional order.