November 11, 2025
A Heartfelt Call for Vigilance
The tense and unpleasant situation currently prevailing in Armenia, brought to a head by the confrontation between the authorities and a number of high-ranking clergymen, is undoubtedly causing deep distress to us all.
In our declaration dated June 29, 2025, headed “With Our People and Our Homeland, For Our People and Our Homeland,” the Central Board of the Armenian Democratic Liberal Party had resolutely urged that the Mother See categorically cease having political aspirations and interventions, so that the unseemly trampling of our inviolable understanding of statehood, as well as the affront to our national dignity, should not continue.
Catholicos Karekin II, however, has regrettably chosen not to break his firm alliance with other like-minded adventurers, openly pursuing devious, misguided and perilous political objectives.
What is more, it is a horrifying phenomenon that the Mother See, with a certain vainglorious arrogance, is seeking to seize power in the homeland. Theocracy is an undemocratic and repugnant form of governance, rejected and alienated by all conscious and progressive peoples.
It is absolutely unacceptable and intolerable that our Church should have political orientations. Moreover, it is deniable to the point of insulting intelligence that the head of the Church bearing the title of All Armenians should openly reveal a clear political stance contrary to the indisputable majority of the Armenian people.
The Armenian Democratic Liberal Party, unquestionably, considers the Armenian Apostolic Church to be one of the most sacred pillars of our national identity, for whose unblemished, incorrupt and unshakable preservation it has always fought, uncompromisingly. It is with that very principled outlook and zeal that our Central Board deems the present inglorious situation to be despicable and dishonourable.
The sacred and highly significant mission of Armenian clergymen is the spiritual leadership of our people. It would be highly desirable and beneficial if the clergy of the Armenian Apostolic Church were to focus their attention and time entirely on that soulful mission.
We note with regret, however, that the secular, materialistic and misguided conduct and appetites of Karekin II and a number of other high-ranking clergymen, wholly alien to the clerical order, threaten to destroy the reverent respect, trust and even faith that the Armenian people harbour towards our Church.
This morally defiled situation not only severely tarnishes and discredits the Armenian Apostolic Church, but may even cause irreparable harm to both our sacred homeland and our entire nation.
Therefore, it has become imperatively necessary that Karekin II and his “comrades-in-arms” clergymen thoroughly weigh and moderate their present course, so that we may, as a nation, avoid extremely undesirable and disheartening situations and all their consequences.
THE CENTRAL BOARD OF THE ARMENIAN DEMOCRATIC LIBERAL PARTY
