Church against Pashinyan: where does such "love" come from?

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has made a controversial and offensive remark directed at opposition priest Bagrat Srbazan.

“Srbazan, go deal with your own family matters—what does that have to do with me?” Pashinyan wrote.

And no, this isn’t a joke or a fake—it’s a real statement from the head of the Armenian government.

P.S. Bagrat did not respond. Perhaps he was busy.

In fact, Pashinyan’s comment to Bagrat Galstanyan is just one in a series of public attacks on the Armenian Apostolic Church. Under the leadership of Catholicos Garegin, the church has become one of the few organized forces opposing Pashinyan’s government.

Their mutual animosity goes back years. Bagrat Galstanyan once declared that Armenians should either not vote at all or immediately seek to remove Pashinyan, partly because he and his wife, Anna Hakobyan, never married in a church.

Pashinyan replied that they had not even had a civil ceremony either.

Since then, Bagrat has turned the topic of Pashinyan’s marriage—or lack thereof—into one of his recurring talking points.

Pashinyan, in turn, has not held back. Just recently in parliament, he compared churches to “cluttered closets,” igniting outrage among clergy. The Armenian Church responded through media and social platforms, accusing Pashinyan and his wife of trying to discredit the institution.

Naturally, the counterattacks followed. Bagrat was labeled a fraud and accused of inappropriate conduct. Criticism of the church intensified, and Pashinyan personally took to Facebook to lash out not only at Bagrat but at the entire church.

And this was just before noon—by then, Pashinyan had already accused Bagrat and his supporters of attempting a power grab and committing acts of vandalism.

To top it off, Pashinyan publicly questioned whether priests actually honor their vows of celibacy.

He claimed they don’t—and even threatened to release evidence. Now, he declared, the church would be held accountable.