Hraparak daily of Armenia writes as follows, in particular: The anti-church campaign of [PM] Nikol Pashinyan, his wife, and some CC [i.e. the ruling Civil Contract Party and its parliamentary faction] members continues to shake up the CC as well.

The majority of the NA [(National Assembly)] faction [of the CC] does not agree with the steps being taken against the [Armenian Apostolic] church, but does not dare to speak out about it. From private conversations with several of them, we have found out that Pashinyan, in order to justify his attitude towards the [Armenian Apostolic Church] clergy, has put into circulation a theory in the [CC] team that Russia has given the Armenian Apostolic Church an instruction to fight against the [Armenian] authorities—last year through [Archbishop] Bagrat Galstanyan, and now, the Mother See [of Holy Etchmiadzin].

Supposedly, many of the [Armenian Apostolic] church servants should make anti-government statements, so he is doing all this to break the church's resistance, to catch the fear of the church servants.

Of course, a few sworn backpackers [i.e. CC members] believed this tale, but most figured out that this was another "trick." For example, ‘They weren't going to say that Azerbaijan has targeted the Armenian Apostolic Church, and we are attacking on their instructions.’ So, many [of the CC members] are still silent until they receive a direct instruction from the "boss" to join the dirty campaign.