Hovik Aghazaryan, a former member of the ruling Civil Contract party, has condemned the Prime Minister’s recent statements about the Armenian Apostolic Church as unacceptable, highlighting a troubling imbalance in state-church relations, Aysor.am reports.

According to Aghazaryan, the current tensions may be deliberate and linked to potentially dangerous political developments.

“People know my stance on religion and the Church. I believe religion is among humanity’s most dreadful creations. I’m neither an atheist nor a believer, but I consider myself Christian because I share those values. In that light, I believe the Armenian Apostolic Church has played a crucial role in preserving our national identity,” he said.

He firmly rejected the Prime Minister’s criticisms of the Church, stressing that such statements disrupt the delicate balance between state and Church.

“These mutual insults, initiated by the Prime Minister, are unacceptable to me. I stand by the principle that the state must not interfere in Church matters, and the Church should not meddle in politics,” he added.

Aghazaryan emphasized that if a cleric violates the law, the response should be legal, not personal.

“If any clergyman commits a crime as defined by the Criminal Code, they must be held accountable by law. But no one has the right to intrude into another’s private life with filthy thoughts, hands, or feet,” he noted.

Still, he considers these controversies secondary to a broader concern.

“All of this is secondary. I’m worried the Prime Minister is trying to create a situation, possibly in preparation for signing documents that could have fatal consequences for our state,” Aghazaryan concluded.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan had previously responded to clerical criticism—following his remark likening churches to “storage rooms” during a government meeting—with offensive language aimed at religious figures. He published several Facebook posts of this nature, joined by his wife Anna Hakobyan, who called clerics “the country’s top pedophiles.”

Pashinyan also asserted that the state should play a key role in the selection of the Catholicos of All Armenians. In another post, he questioned Catholicos Karekin II’s celibacy vow.

“If it turns out Karekin II has broken his celibacy and has a child, he cannot remain Catholicos because the presence of such a fact would have disqualified him from priesthood,” the Prime Minister wrote.

The Church responded, condemning such attacks as serving external anti-Armenian forces and linking them to Azerbaijani propaganda targeting the Armenian people and Church.