Armenian parliament speaker predicts imminent resignation of Catholicos Garegin II

Alen Simonyan, Speaker of the Armenian Parliament, has expressed strong confidence that Catholicos Garegin II will soon step down from his post.

“If not today or tomorrow, then very soon he will resign,” Caliber.Az quotes Simonyan as saying, per Armenian media.

However, he did not reveal the source of this certainty. The ruling party, Civil Contract, currently has no candidate to replace the spiritual leader.

Note that, in June 2025, tensions between the Armenian government and the Armenian Apostolic Church intensified when Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan publicly accused Catholicos Garegin II of fathering an illegitimate child, which would be a breach of the Church’s celibacy rules.

Pashinyan called for the Catholicos’s resignation and proposed establishing a special body to oversee his possible replacement, signalling a significant challenge to the Church’s leadership.

The Armenian Apostolic Church responded by rejecting the allegations, describing them as attacks on the country’s spiritual unity.

In turn, Church leaders called for Pashinyan’s excommunication, reflecting the serious nature of the dispute.

By Aghakazim Guliyev