Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s latest comments, interpreting his party’s victory in Vagharshapat as a “mandate” to challenge the authority of Catholicos Karekin II, expose far more than a quarrel with the Armenian Apostolic Church. They unveil the ideological crossroads at which Armenia now stands: between old institutions that symbolise historic identity and a political leadership determined to reinvent the country’s trajectory after decades of regional isolation, military defeat, and economic stagnation.

Pashinyan’s assertion that the public has given him the green light to “liberate the Mother See of Etchmiadzin” is an unmistakable challenge to the Church’s leadership. Vagharshapat is no ordinary municipality; it is the spiritual heart of Armenia, the home of Echmiadzin’s Mother See, and thus the very symbol of the Armenian nation. For Pashinyan to frame a local election victory as a sign of support for weakening, reforming, or even removing Catholicos Karekin II suggests he sees the Church not simply as a religious institution but as a political actor resistant to his vision.

For years, the Armenian Apostolic Church has been among Pashinyan’s most vocal critics, particularly regarding the 2020 defeat in the Second Karabakh War and his subsequent peace negotiations with Azerbaijan. The Church’s messaging has often aligned with nationalist factions that portray compromise as capitulation. From Pashinyan’s perspective, the Church stands in the way of what he calls a “peaceful and democratic Armenia”, a phrase that, in his rhetoric, now includes restructuring or........

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