The several bishops and archbishops of the Armenian Apostolic Church who have sworn loyalty to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan have issued a statement considering invalid the meeting of the current executive body of the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Supreme Spiritual Council, being convened Thursday.

“On December 15 of this year, Catholicos of All Armenians Karekin II informed several members of the Supreme Spiritual Council that by a patriarchal decree, their powers within the Supreme Spiritual Council (hereafter SSC) had been suspended without specifying the grounds or reasons.

Some of the bishops were elected as SSC members for a four-year term by the Church-Representative Assembly (hereafter CRA) held at the Mother See on June 6-8, 2017.

According to the aforementioned statutes, the CRA must be convened once every two years, and in accordance with the SSC charter, when a member’s four-year term ends, new elections of SSC members must be held.

Within the powers of the Catholicos of All Armenians, the CRA should have been convened and new elections of the SSC members should have been held every two years.

The executive power body of the Armenian Apostolic Holy Church has continued to operate in violation of the SSC charter. Naturally, questions arise, particularly regarding the legality and authority of the SSC’s activities and decisions made since 2021. The CRA and SSC statutes also lack the regulations that could serve as a basis for the non-convening of the assemblies of the Church’s highest bodies. All of this is once again the evidence of Catholicos Karekin II’s one-man, statutory-violating activities, which have led to a governance crisis at the Mother See and the Armenian Apostolic Holy Church.

We again recall that the most serious issues related to the Church’s inadequate governance have been repeatedly raised by representatives of the episcopate, and our recent public statements have pointed to their possible solutions: to retire the Catholicos of All Armenians, develop and adopt a new statute based on the tradition and Mission of the Armenian Apostolic Holy Church.

Considering the gross and arbitrary violations of the CRA and SSC statutes, the abuse of power in the activities of these bodies, it becomes clear that the session of the Supreme Spiritual Council convened by the Catholicos of All Armenians at the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin on December 18 of this year is invalid, and the decisions made by this body since 2021 may be regarded as unlawful. It is necessary to immediately suspend the current activities of the SSC and the appointment of new members until a new CRA session is convened,” the statement reads.