By Shoghik Galstian
YEREVAN (Azatutyun) — Breaking with a decades-long tradition, Armenia’s state television has not broadcast a New Year’s Eve address by Catholicos Karekin II, the supreme head of the Armenian Apostolic Church increasingly at loggerheads with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
The annual addresses by Karekin and his two predecessors, followed by similar speeches delivered by the incumbent president or prime minister of the republic, had been aired shortly before midnight on December 31 ever since 1990.
“This year, at the last minute, the Public Television Company informed, without any reason, that His Holiness’ New Year’s message will not be broadcast before midnight, as was traditionally customary,” the church’s Echmiadzin-based Mother See said late on Sunday, December 31. It said it rejected the state-controlled broadcaster’s offer to air the message during an earlier news program.
Public Television did not issue any statements on the matter as of January 1. Its executive director and spokesperson did not answer phone calls and written questions from RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
The apparent snub drew strong condemnation from some senior clergymen as well as many opposition and public figures. They accused Pashinyan of ordering the country’s leading TV channel run by his loyalists not to air Karekin’s speech right before his televised remarks.
