Armenia Holds Inaugural Prayer Breakfast amid Church Arrests

Organizations such as the influential Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) have denounced the prayer breakfast as an exercise in political image making. ANCA representatives warned American faith leaders and policymakers against joining what a human rights lawyer Robert Amsterdam called “a reputation-laundering breakfast” in an interview clip with Tucker Carlson reposted by the ANCA.

Eibner warned that Christians attending the prayer breakfast in Yerevan, Armenia’s capital, should do so “with eyes and ears open,” wary of the possibility that the event could serve as “a religious smokescreen for something unsavory.”

Pashinyan supporters, however, view the arrests of the church leaders differently. Giorgi Tumasyan, a representative of the Armenian community of Georgia and advocate for Georgia’s and Armenia’s integration into the European Union, sees the confrontation as a long-overdue reckoning with the church’s entanglement in post-Soviet networks of power and overt Russian influence. “When it comes to political influence, the Armenian church should not be under any other state’s influence than Armenia’s,” Tumasyan said.

Tumasyan believes the arrests do not amount to persecution but “liberation” of AAC from outside influence and corruption.

Tumasyan, who describes himself as part of a movement within the Armenian church to restore its sovereignty, argued that people should see the government’s actions — even the prayer breakfast — through the lens of Armenia’s geopolitical struggle to assert independence from Moscow while pursuing peace with Azerbaijan and normalization with Turkey. “The Armenian state is trying to usher in peace,” he said. “Karekin II is trying to keep the confrontation with Azerbaijan under direction from Moscow. But peace is of existential importance to Armenia.”

Tumasyan said the arrests and pressure on the current AAC leadership are only “a temporary process” to liberate it from another state’s interference and maintain peace. After that, Tumasyan said, “the sovereignty of the church — which is in the constitution — will be restored.”

Several sources identified Stepan Sargsyan, former governor of Armenia’s Lachin district, as organizer of the prayer breakfast. While the event is presented as a faith-based initiative, Sargsyan’s work with the My Step Foundation — the nonprofit chaired by Pashinyan’s wife, journalist Anna Hakobyan — has raised questions about the event’s political dimensions. Critics note that the overlap between the prayer breakfast’s leadership and Pashinyan’s inner circle suggests the government may have staged the event to bolster the government’s image and influence public perception at home and abroad.

Sargsyan previously lobbied in Washington, DC, on behalf of Christian Armenians in Azerbaijan, and Pashinyan attended the US National Prayer Breakfast in February 2025, a trip linked to the prime minister’s efforts to engage the Trump administration on the Armenia–Azerbaijan peace process and further cultivate Western allies amid Yerevan’s shift away from Moscow.

While Graham said he would not attend the breakfast, he struck a note of solidarity with Armenian Christians, praising the country’s faith heritage and acknowledging its suffering.

“Christianity came to Armenia more than 1,700 years ago,” he wrote in an email to Christianity Today. “Throughout history, the people of Armenia have endured immense suffering, even in recent times. Let us continue to pray for Armenia.”

For Armenian evangelicals, who are a small minority in the Christian-majority nation, the debate has exposed both opportunity and tension.

Levon Bardakjian, founding pastor of the Evangelical Church of Armenia in Yerevan, plans to attend the breakfast. But he hopes the focus will remain on faith rather than factional politics.

“My wish is that this is not a political event but a sincere devotional one,” he said. Bardakjian, who was baptized in the AAC, is sympathetic to the church but also frustrated with its hierarchy.

“The church as an institution is often worshiped rather than Christ,” he said. “The church fails to make Christ personal to maintain influence and power.”

Still, he resists reading every development through the lens of geopolitics or persecution. “Even in America, politicians will politicize prayer,” he said. “But the truth is that whatever it is we are doing, as Paul says, the name of Jesus must be made known.”