Pashinyan Says He Is Ready to Discuss Armenian Church Reform Agenda with Catholicos Karekin II

YEREVAN — Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said he is prepared to meet with Catholicos Karekin II to discuss an agenda for reforming the Armenian Apostolic Church if the Catholicos accepts such an agenda.

Pashinyan made the remarks during a speech in the National Assembly.

“If Karekin II, or Ktrij Nersissian, accepts an agenda for reforming the Armenian Apostolic Church, I solemnly declare from this podium that I will sit down with him and discuss that agenda with the utmost respect,” Pashinyan said.

“I have never said that there are people who are ‘ours’ and others who are ‘not ours,’ with some permitted to follow standards of integrity and others not. The agenda for reforming the Armenian Apostolic Church has been clearly defined: standards of integrity and clear mechanisms for ensuring compliance with those standards,” he continued.

“How can we tolerate it when what is sacred to us has been compromised? Let us put everything else aside—whether you want to call him His Holiness, Karekin II or Ktrij Nersissian. Beyond all of that, there are facts known to every citizen of the Republic of Armenia and every believer,” Pashinyan said.

Addressing a statement by Strong Armenia parliamentary faction leader Narek Karapetyan that 97 percent of Armenian citizens trust the Church, Pashinyan said:

“An opposition representative says that 97 percent of the citizens of the Republic of Armenia believe in the Church. Of course they do. That is precisely the problem: 97 percent of Armenia’s citizens believe, while the head of the Church does not believe in God at all. He has no spiritual life; he has renounced his covenant with God, and the consequences of that breach have been placed on all of us. I am not prepared to bear responsibility for that breach of covenant,” Pashinyan said.