Armenian PM's chief of staff: Church in moral crisis

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s Chief of Staff, Araik Harutyunyan, has launched a scathing attack on the clergy of the Armenian Apostolic Church (AAC), accusing it of descending into a “crisis of morality and absurdity.”

In a Facebook post on July 15, Harutyunyan mocked what he described as the increasingly bizarre rhetoric emerging from within the Church, criticising clerics for promoting superstition and defending outdated traditions, Caliber.Az reports.

Referring to recent statements made by members of the clergy, he said the Church was exposing itself through stories involving “curses,” claims that a child had a stroke after urinating on a church wall, and exaggerated warnings that the prime minister would be beheaded.

"The Prime Minister hasn't written anything about Ktrich Nersisyan [Catholicos Garegin II - ed.] for five or six days now, and the clergy are voluntarily exposing the problems of a doctrine relegated to the level of a plinth: and the old Jaduan curses of Father Asoghik [Hieromonk Asoghik Karapetyan - ed.], and a child peed on the church wall and had a stroke, and Prime Minister Pashinyan's head is being chopped off, and the one who spoke out against the Catholicos has been hit four times, and we have one Catholicos, Catholicos Aram is not a Catholicos [kudos to Catholicos Aram], and also, ‘Brothers, we shared a piece of bread, how do you come out against our Ktrich?’,” the post reads.

He also condemned the Church’s spiritual leaders for breaking celibacy vows.

“When we talk about breaking the vow of celibacy, this is the culmination of all this obscurantism and sacrilege,” Harutyunyan said, adding that clerics should “disgrace themselves to the end” if they intend to continue hiding behind religious garments.

The sharp remarks come amid deepening friction between the Armenian Apostolic Church and the government. The two sides have been at odds since Armenia’s defeat in the 2020 Second Karabakh War, after which Garegin II called for Pashinyan’s resignation, citing national instability.

Tensions reignited in May 2024 when Armenia returned four border villages to Azerbaijan — a move that triggered fresh protests led by the Church and opposition figures, including Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, who heads the “Holy Struggle” movement. Demonstrators have accused Pashinyan’s government of betraying national interests and have again called for his resignation.

In response, the Armenian government has conducted over 90 searches, detaining over a dozen individuals, including senior clerics and opposition activists, on charges of terrorism and plotting a coup. Pashinyan has publicly accused the AAC, particularly Garegin II, of corruption and moral violations, including breaching celibacy vows, and has called for his resignation.

By Sabina Mammadli