Tensions between the Armenian government and the Armenian Apostolic Church have escalated sharply after Parliament Speaker Alen Simonyan urged Catholicos of All Armenians Garegin II to step down from his post before the 2026 parliamentary elections.
Speaking to journalists, Simonyan said that a leadership change within the Church “should not be politicized” but must happen ahead of the vote.
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“He should understand that he must not reach a point where he has no alternative. While he still has one, he can make that decision himself,” Simonyan stated, effectively calling on the Catholicos to resign “in time.”
The remark adds a new layer to the ongoing confrontation between the state and the Church, a clash that has grown increasingly public and personal. Supporters of Garegin II accuse the government of interfering in religious affairs, while pro-government voices claim that senior clergy have aligned themselves with the opposition and are “crossing into politics.”
The standoff took a more serious turn with the arrest of the Catholicos’s brother, Gevorg Nersisyan, and his nephew, Ambartsum Nersisyan.
According to their lawyer, Ara Zohrabyan, they were detained on charges of hooliganism and obstruction of election campaigning.
The arrests reportedly followed a Facebook post by Arutyun Mkrtchyan, a candidate from the Republic Party, who accused the Catholicos’s relatives of disrupting his campaign event on November 1.
The scandal has deepened Armenia’s internal divisions ahead of the 2026 elections. The once-symbolic tension between religion and politics has now turned into an open power struggle – a contest over moral authority and influence in Armenian society.
