Scandals Surrounding Nikol Pashinyan in Armenia Are Escalating 0 113

The Investigative Committee of Armenia has filed a petition with the court for the arrest of 18-year-old David Minasyan, who was detained two days earlier after his altercation with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan at the St. Anna Church in Yerevan, reports Armenia Today. He has been charged with hooliganism and interfering with the official activities of a public official. Other participants in the incident – his brother Mikael Minasyan and Gevorg Gevorgyan – were released on bail.

As reported by News.am, the detention of the teenagers and the subsequent search of their homes occurred a few hours after the conclusion of the service for Palm Sunday (observed in Armenia a week before Easter according to the Gregorian calendar) on March 29. They were displeased with the actions of Pashinyan's security guards as they attempted to clear a path for the Prime Minister to the altar through the crowd. After this, the young people tried to approach Pashinyan to express their dissatisfaction.

Following the detention of the teenagers, opposition bloc "Armenia" (29 mandates out of 107) deputy Garnik Danielyan wrote on social media that the episode demonstrates the fear of the Armenian Prime Minister towards his own citizens. "He is so cowardly that he does not spare even students who merely expressed their civic position," the politician added.

This is not the first incident involving Pashinyan and the Armenian church. Since 2020, Armenian authorities have been in conflict with church leadership after the Catholicos of the Armenian Apostolic Church (AAC) Garegin II accused Pashinyan of Armenia's defeat in the second Nagorno-Karabakh war and called for him to resign as Prime Minister. The AAC criticized the government after Yerevan returned a number of border villages to Azerbaijan as part of the delimitation of the northern section of the border, which temporarily provoked opposition protests.

In turn, Pashinyan has accused the church of lacking economic transparency, and in May 2025, he compared the Armenian church to a storeroom. Furthermore, in December of the same year, he published a roadmap for church reforms on his social media page following the removal of Garegin II and the election of a new Catholicos. By February, the Prosecutor General's Office initiated a criminal case against the church leader and banned him from leaving the country for refusing to reinstate Bishop Arman Saroyan, despite a court ruling.

The conflict between the Armenian authorities and the church negatively affects Pashinyan's approval rating and that of his party "Civil Contract," says political scientist Arthur Ataev. Currently, his support stands at 24% – higher than that of the opposition, but in a crisis situation, this could change at any moment, the expert noted: "Although the Armenian opposition is still fragmented, and its potential leader Samvel Karapetyan holds dual citizenship and is under criminal pressure, the possibility of uniting Pashinyan's opponents ahead of the parliamentary elections on June 7 cannot be ruled out."

At the same time, the church's ability to influence Armenian politics is extremely limited against the backdrop of the strengthening positions of the Armenian authorities, Ataev continues. During this confrontation, Pashinyan managed to win over 10 influential bishops in the country to his side, thus preventing the consolidation of the church around the current Catholicos. Additionally, four priests are currently under investigation, and two are in custody, the Caucasus expert reminded: "If the ruling party wins the elections, repressions against the AAC will continue."

Shortly before the incident in the church, Pashinyan had a heated exchange with a female passenger in the Yerevan metro on March 22, who had moved from Nagorno-Karabakh, after he offered her a badge with the outline of the Republic of Armenia. The woman refused to accept the gift and accused him of surrendering territories. In response, Pashinyan accused the Karabakh Armenians of being the ones who fled and ran away from their homeland.

There have been other scandals involving Pashinyan. For example, on February 28, during the Prime Minister's visit to Artashat, he unexpectedly decided to talk to customers at a shop, but he was shown the door. On March 1, during a visit to Ijevan, residents confronted Pashinyan with a question about the unfair appointment of a kindergarten director. He lost his temper and replied that "the Prime Minister does not appoint kindergarten directors." And on March 7, at a public meeting in the town of Maralik, in response to requests to build a kindergarten for them, the politician began to complain about rumors that he has "a house in Dubai, in Paris, in Italy."