By Susan Badalian
YEREVAN (Azatutyun) — Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan demanded the resignation of Catholicos Karekin II on Monday amid growing support for the supreme head of the Armenian Apostolic Church voiced by opposition and public figures, including former President Levon Ter-Petrosian.
He said Karekin must leave the church headquarters in Echmiadzin after ten days of vicious attacks which his political enemies claim is coordinated with Azerbaijan.
Pashinyan began his social media campaign with allegations that Karekin and many other senior clergymen have had secret sex affairs in breach of their vows of celibacy and must therefore be defrocked. He has been focused on the Catholicos in recent days, saying that the latter must prove the opposite or step down.
In his latest Facebook post, Pashinyan charged that Karekin cannot head the ancient church because he had broken his celibacy and fathered a child. He pledged to “prove that in the necessary format.” Pashinyan also urged followers of the church to “unite around the agenda of liberating the Seat of the Catholicos with love and in a Christian manner.”
The church’s Mother See in Echmiadzin did not immediately and officially react to what looked like a call to occupy it. But the head of its museums and archive, Father Asoghik Karapetyan, expressed concern over what he called violent actions “openly planned at the state level.”
