Armenia’s government is proposing amendments to the Land Code that would end the practice of granting state and municipal land to the Mother See as free ownership for church construction and maintenance.

Instead, such land would be provided only under the right of free use. The draft is included on the agenda of the December 25 cabinet meeting, RFE//RL reports.

The justification attached to the draft does not explain the reasons for the change. During interagency discussions, the Ministry of Justice also flagged this, noting that “based on the submitted rationale, it is not possible to fully assess the advisability of adopting the draft, as analyses of the current situation, existing problems, regulatory objectives, and expected outcomes are missing.”

The author of the draft—the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure—initially based the proposal on an instruction by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan issued at a meeting in Tavush in April 2023, which called for discussing the advisability of restricting the transfer of commonly used pasture lands into private ownership. According to the Ministry of Justice, the presented draft does not address those regulations in any way.

Following the Justice Ministry’s remarks, that portion was removed from the draft’s justification.

The proposed changes will not apply retroactively to land already transferred to the Mother See. Going forward, the government will no longer grant land as free ownership to the Armenian Apostolic Church. Instead, it will conclude free-use agreements defining the rights, obligations, and terms for the use of land by the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin.