News - Pashinyan has announced a roadmap of steps to be taken after the removal of Karekin II.

Today, December 8, Nikol Pashinyan posted on his Facebook page a note outlining the sequence of actions he intends to take after removing Garegin II from the Catholicosate. Pashinyan wrote, in particular, that the roadmap for renewing the Armenian Apostolic Church after the removal of Ktrich Nersisyan includes: 1) the election of a locum tenens of the Catholicos in accordance with the Church’s existing mechanisms; 2) the adoption of the Church’s Statute. The Statute should address: a) the rules of the clergy’s ethical conduct and the guarantees for ensuring them; b) the financial transparency of the Armenian Apostolic Church and the guarantees for ensuring it; c) the necessity for the Church to be nonpolitical and the guarantees for ensuring this; d) the compliance of the Church’s activities with the Republic of Armenia’s tax legislation and the guarantees for ensuring this, with Armenian law in turn providing guarantees that taxes and duties arising from the Church’s activities and paid to the state budget will be fully returned to the Church; e) social guarantees for clergy and their safeguards so that clergy can fully benefit from the pension system, the refund of income tax, social credits, and universal health insurance (currently clergy largely do not benefit from these systems due to the lack of an officially recorded remuneration system). 3) Elections of the Catholicos of All Armenians in accordance with the new Statute. P.S. The Statute is discussed and adopted by the ecclesiastical body with such authority. In the case of the locum’s mediation, the Government will provide advisory support to the drafting of the Statute. Earlier today, Pashinyan had also spoken about the need for changes in the church. He proposed singing the hymn before the service and placing the Republic of Armenia’s flag in churches.