What position should I take towards that disgrace? Isn’t it clear that any conversation on that topic is generally unacceptable? Third President Serzh Sargsyan told this to reporters in Yerevan Tuesday—and referring to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s ongoing smear campaign against Catholicos of All Armenians Karekin II and other clergy of the Armenian Apostolic Church.

Sargsyan emphasized that in defending the Catholicos on this matter, they will follow the exhortations of Karekin II and his position.

“I believe that the occasion [for this smear campaign] was probably the speech of His Holiness in Switzerland, that event, but it completely fits into his [i.e. Pashinyan’s] invented concept of a ‘new Armenia;’ that is, by changing ‘Armenian history’ with the ‘history of Armenia,’ by discrediting the Armenian Apostolic Church. These are different links in the same chain, there is nothing surprising here," the third president added.