The annual addresses by Garegin and his two predecessors, followed by similar speeches delivered by the incumbent president or prime minister of the republic, had been aired shortly before midnight on December 31 ever since 1990.
“This year, at the last minute, the Public Television Company informed, without any reason, that His Holiness' New Year's message will not be broadcast before midnight, as was traditionally customary,” the church’s Echmiadzin-based Mother See said late on Sunday. It said it rejected the state-controlled broadcaster’s offer to air the message during an earlier news program.
Public Television did not issue any statements on the matter as of Tuesday evening. Its executive director and spokesperson did not answer phone calls and written questions from RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
The apparent snub drew strong condemnation from some senior clergymen as well as many opposition and public figures. They accused Pashinian of ordering the country’s leading TV channel run by his loyalists not to air Garegin’s speech right before his televised remarks.
The Armenian government did not react to those claims. Its press office also could not be reached for comment.
Pashinian’s relationship with the ancient church, to which the vast majority of Armenians belong, has increasingly deteriorated in recent years and especially since the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh. Garegin and other senior clergymen joined the Armenian opposition in calling for Pashinian’s resignation following Armenia’s defeat in the six-week war.
Pashinian and other senior Armenian officials have boycotted Christmas and Easter liturgies led by Garegin for the past three years. In May 2023, the premier accused the church of meddling in politics, prompting a scathing response from Garegin’s office.
Tensions between the government and the church rose further in early October when Garegin blamed Pashinian for Azerbaijan’s recapture of Nagorno-Karabakh and the resulting mass exodus of the region’s ethnic Armenian population. The church repeatedly condemned Pashinian for recognizing Azerbaijani sovereignty over Karabakh before Baku’s September 19-20 military offensive.
The Catholicos spoke of a “relentless pain of immense losses in our hearts” and referred to “the occupation and depopulation of Artsakh” at the start of his New Year message aired by other TV stations.
“Let us surround our sisters and brothers forcibly displaced from Artsakh with caring love; let us increase hope in them so that the vision of returning to native Artsakh never fades and faith in God remains strong,” he said.
Garegin also made a point of inviting group of Karabakh Armenian refugees to his New Year’s Eve dinner with Echmiadzin priests.
By contrast, Pashinian made no direct mention of the loss of Karabakh in his address to the nation. Instead, he pointed to Armenia’s continuing robust economic growth and praised his government’s response to the influx of more than 100,000 Karabakh refugees. He also said his top priorities now are to pursue “the state interest of the Republic of Armenia” and “find formulas for the normalization and deepening of relations with our neighbors in our region.”
