Church-State Relations in Armenia

That status has been criticized by the hired guns of the universalists currently active in Armenia. Although the constitution endorses religious freedom, the role of the Armenian Apostolic Church has come under scrutiny. The answer and the argument is a common sense one; since the majority of the Armenians belong to the Apostolic Church, therefore, under majority rule, the Armenian Church should be the state religion.

Since independence, the leadership in Armenia has not developed an analytical approach to the diaspora and consequently has failed to formulate a coherent policy. And that includes the church. The Armenian Church still remains as a diasporan phenomenon to many citizens of Armenia.

A misstatement by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan wreaked havoc in Armenia regarding the church; indeed, he stressed the concept of separation of church and state, abandoning the role of the state as a protector of the church. That misstatement encouraged people with their own agendas to launch a campaign against the Catholicos of All Armenians Karekin II. Mr. Pashinyan soon realized the impact of his statement and ever since, has been trying to mend fences with the Catholicos. Indeed, both parties have taken concrete steps to return some rationality into the discourse.

The prime minister and the catholicos held a joint meeting on May 3 to regulate the relations between the church and the state. Reading their opening remarks, one can still detect a divergence of opinions on the issue but the two groups will continue the work to come up with a new protocol.

The Catholicos’ remarks highlight three major principles: To recognize the Armenian Apostolic Church as the national church in Armenia, similar to the national churches in Scandinavia; the church and the state are separate entities but not antagonistic to each other and finally, the state has to return to the church properties confiscated during the Soviet period.

That last issue entails two different items: properties that are income bearing or the the ancient churches and monasteries which need tremendous amounts of investment to maintain their historic value.

From a rather verbose statement by Mr. Pashinyan, one can detect two ideas: that the state has to tax the church properties and business activities, and second, the prime minister believes upholding more general Christian values than accepting the special role of the Armenian Apostolic Church.

This last concept is promoted by foreign religious sects’ NGOs currently active in Armenia to undermine the traditional value system of the populace.

Communism upheld the universal rights of the masses but ended up destroying individual nations. The same role may play the emphasis on general Christian values versus the role of the Armenian Apostolic Church.

The prime minister has also confessed that he read the Bible recently and the values represented in the Holy Book directly conform with the value system of his political party, My Step.

We do hope that there are more sophisticated religious scholars in both parties to come up with equitable solutions and a comprehensive protocol to resolve the outstanding issues rather than avoiding them.