Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan today continued his Facebook tirade targeting the Armenian Apostolic Church and the Catholicos of All Armenians.

This was Pashinyan’s eighteenth such post in the past eleven days.

Pashinyan claimed in his post that Karekin II has broken his vow of celibacy and has a child. The prime minister also noted that if the Catholicos tries to deny this, he would present evidence to the contrary.

“As a faithful follower of the Armenian Apostolic Church, as a person who treats with respect every value, every relic, every image and stone of our spiritual heritage, I announce that the Armenian Apostolic Holy Church must have a newly elected Catholicos, whose good conduct will be verified and confirmed prior to the Catholicosate elections,” Pashinyan wrote today.

“I call on the faithful followers of the Armenian Apostolic Holy Church to unite around the agenda of liberating the Patriarchate with love and Christianity and electing a truly sacred clergyman as Catholicos of All Armenians,” Pashinyan added.

Pashinyan launched this campaign against the Armenian Apostolic Church on May 29. At a regular government session, he called the churches “desecrated.”

The clergy responded mildly to Pashinyan’s statement. The Head of the Etchmiadzin Mother See, Bishop Arshak Khachatryan, considered it an example of appreciation that the prime minister has finally understood his and the government’s responsibility to preserve Armenian holy places.

“It is regrettable that when speaking on such a delicate issue, even a person occupying such a prominent position cannot help but demonstrate the lack of “fashionably proclaimed” education, as well as the internal crisis of proper public communication and a deep understanding of the issues,” Khachatryan wrote.

Pashinyan’s post the next morning shocked Armenian society.

“Your Holiness, go continue to screw your uncle’s wife, what do you have to do with me,” Pashinyan wrote. (The word Pashinyan used, dompel, is a slang term to "bang/screw" as in sexual intercourse-ed.)

Commenting on this post, many could not believe that the author was the prime minister. Many  believed that Pashinyan’s FB page had been hacked. However, minutes later,  Pashinyan made another post.

“Is it necessary to face the question of how many of our bishops are faithful to the vow of celibacy?” he wrote.

During the day, the prime minister made four more posts about the clergy’s violation of the vow of celibacy.

Pashinyan went further, writing that the Republic of Armenia should have a decisive vote in the election of the Catholicos of All Armenians, and that candidates for the Catholicos should pass a morality check.

It is not known how Pashinyan envisages such a process. According to the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia, the church and the state are separate, and the government cannot interfere in the internal affairs of the church in any way.

On the same day, Anna Hakobyan, Pashinyan’s wife, also issued a post targeting the church. If Pashinyan accused the clergy of violating church rules, Hakobyan accused them of committing a criminally punishable act - child abuse.

“The country’s main child abusers were demonized by the word chulan. Of course, that’s how it should have been. After all, chulans are the dark corners of the lives of maniacs wearing black garb. It is in chulans that perversions take place, which no longer deserve the wrath of the faithful. The faithful, having long since come to terms with it, are lugging the country’s main maniac perverts on their shoulders,” Hakobyan wrote.

(The word chulan, in popular Eastern Armenian parlance, depicts a cellar/storeroom.)

The Armenian Apostolic Church addressed Pashinyan’s statements on June 2. The statement issued after the session of the Supreme Spiritual Council convened in the Etchmiadzin Mother See stated that Nikol Pashinyan’s statements violate fundamental human rights and grossly offend the religious feelings of believers.

“This anti-church stance is clearly dictated by political goals and is an attempt to belittle the authority of the Armenian Church and its clergy, which are respected in national life and in international circles, to silence the voice of the Church and reduce its public influence. The anti-church behavior of the head of government, the processes initiated against national values ​​and the Church are fraught with destructive consequences and a threat to the Armenian statehood, the unity of our people both in the homeland and in the diaspora. Such actions divide society, weaken the spirit of the nation and the high consciousness of patriotism, especially in the conditions of the current challenges. Such reprehensible initiatives serve the ambitions of foreign anti-Armenian forces, being connected with the slander and false accusations directed at the Armenian people and the Armenian Church by the Azerbaijani propaganda machine,” the statement reads.

In addition to the Mother See, several political and public figures also noted the connection between Pashinyan’s statements and  accusations emanating from Azerbaijan against the Armenian Apostolic Church.

On May 22,  Grand Mufti of the Caucasus Allahshukur Pashazadeh targeted the Armenian Apostolic Patriarchate, claiming that historical Armenian holy sites  in Armenia and the region, including, the 1700-year-old Mother Cathedral of Holy Etchmiadzin, are located on “historical Azerbaijani lands,” and that Armenians have “appropriated” these territories.

Etchmiadzin described the claim as ridiculous and a fraud.

“It seems ridiculous that the spiritual leader of the people who received the ethnonym “Azerbaijani” in the second half of the 1930s as a result of the nation-building of the Soviet authorities, is trying to dispute the historicity of the Armenian people, whose millennia-old creative life and spiritual and cultural heritage are universally recognized realities. It is even more surprising that the accusations directed at the Armenian nation of appropriating the values ​​of others are made by a representative of a country whose very name is appropriated from another country and people,” the Mother See said in a statement.

Relations between Armenian authorities and the church have been tense since 2018.

At that time, a group of activists had launched the “New Armenia, New Patriarch” movement, which also enjoyed the patronage of some of Pashinyan’s teammates who came to power. One of the leaders of that movement, Karen Petrosyan, was appointed acting director of the Gyumri branch of the Armenian State University of Economics, and then director.

Government-church quarrels deepened in December 2020, when the Catholicos of All Armenians and the Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia urged Pashinyan to resign. Later, Catholicos Karekin II repeated that exhortation, noting that it was open-ended.

In May of last year, when Tavush Primate Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan assumed leadership of the movement demanding Pashinyan’s resignation, members of the ruling Civil Contract party began to insist that the church has no right to engage in politics.

According to some, the reason for the government’s campaign against the Armenian Apostolic Church is its high standing among the public.

Surveys conducted by the Caucasus Barometer show that 62% of respondents have complete and 17% have full trust in their religious institution. In another survey, 80% of respondents indicated that they are followers of the Armenian Apostolic Church.

Top photo: Nikol Pashinyan's Facebook page