Armenia’s ruling Civil Contract party says it will work to reform the Armenian Apostolic Holy Church if it regains power in the country in the June parliamentary election and will seek the removal of the current head of the church, Catholicos Karekin II.

The party issued a statement on April 3, outlining its 2026-2031 policy agenda for Armenia for the next five years if reelected.

Regarding the church, the party calls for:

• Removal of the de facto head of the Armenian Apostolic Holy Church (retirement),
• Election of the Catholicosate Vicar in accordance with the established procedure,
• Adoption of the Statute of the Armenian Apostolic Holy Church. The Statute should establish mechanisms for maintaining the established principles, ensuring financial transparency and good conduct of the clergy,
• Election of the Catholicos of All Armenians in accordance with the established procedure.

While many have criticized Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan and his parliamentary majority for meddling in church matters, the party claims it “respects the freedom of religion and religious beliefs of all citizens and reaffirms that the Republic of Armenia is a secular state.”

There are others, however, who have criticized the church for meddling in domestic politics.

Civil Contract argues the church needs to be reformed  to “restore the constitutional order of the Republic of Armenia by removing the Church from politics.”

Tensions between Pashinyan’s administration and the church deepened in December 2020, following the Armenian military defeat in Karabakh, when the Catholicos of All Armenians and the Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia urged Pashinyan to resign.  

In May of 2024, 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.

Pashinyan, at a May 29, 2025 cabinet session, ramped up his criticism of the church, calling it “desecrated”.

The Armenian prime minister followed up with a series of FB posts by targeting Catholicos Karekin II, claiming he had broken his vow of celibacy and has fathered a child.

In June 2025, Pashinyan posted the following on his FB post.

“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.)

Pashinyan in his speech to the European Parliament on March 11, 2026 called the church an “agent of foreign influence”.