Pashinian has been pressuring Garegin to resign, saying that the latter had fathered a child in breach of his vows of celibacy. His detractors say that he is simply trying to please Azerbaijan and/or neutralize a key source of opposition to his unilateral concessions to Armenia’s arch-foe.
In a July 20 appeal to his supporters, Pashinian pledged to “free” the Echmiadzin seat of the Catholicos, which is part of the town of Vagharshapat, from Garegin. He said they should gear up for a rally in Vagharshapat’s central square adjacent to the church’s Mother See.
Garegin’s office accused Pashinian on July 21 of planning a violent attack on the Mother See. Armenian opposition groups condemned Pashinian’s declared plans in even stronger terms. They also urged their supporters to be ready to rush to Echmiadzin and protect the Catholicos.
Pashinian has still not set a date for the promised rally. Has made no further calls for Garegin’s ouster on social media since July 23, prompting speculation that he dropped his controversial plans.
“My plans cannot change,” Pashinian insisted on Thursday, calling on Garegin to quit “voluntarily.”
“Yes, the Patriarchate must be freed from Ktrich Nersisian (Garegin’s original name) and it must be freed through the efforts of followers of the Armenian Apostolic Holy Church, one of whom is me. I have said that I will lead that process, and I think that you will definitely see its manifestations in the near future,” he said without specifying any dates.
Bishop Hovnan Hakobian, the head of a church diocese encompassing the northern Lori province, scoffed at Pashinian’s remarks, saying that he will fail to depose the Catholicos.
“He [Pashinian] will go, not His Holiness,” Hakobian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
“Suppose they gather 15, 150 or even 1,500 crazy people like him. So what? How many other people will he be up against? Let him talk about that,” said the bishop highly critical of the prime minister.
Pashinian launched his campaign against the top clergy of the Armenian Church right after the World Council of Churches hosted in late May an international conference in Switzerland on the preservation of Nagorno-Karabakh’s Armenian religious and cultural heritage.
Garegin attended and addressed the conference. In a speech, he accused Azerbaijan of committing ethnic cleansing in Karabakh and illegally occupying Armenian border areas. He also denounced the ongoing “sham trials” of eight former Karabakh leaders captured during Azerbaijan’s September 2023 offensive.
Azerbaijan’s top Shia Muslim cleric closely linked to the government responded by accusing the Armenian Church of spreading “provocative, revanchist propaganda” and inciting Armenians to “fight to the death.”
