Armenia’s first national prayer breakfast Friday and Saturday comes amid one of the most potent confrontations between church and state in the country’s modern history.
In recent months, tensions between the government and the Armenian Apostolic Church (AAC), its independent national church, have escalated sharply. Authorities arrested top clergy accused of taking part in a plot to overthrow Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s government earlier this year.
Pashinyan, who will deliver the keynote address at the prayer breakfast, has cast the event as part of his broader effort to “renew Armenia’s spiritual foundations” after years of political turbulence and conflict. The organizers invited American Christian leaders like Franklin Graham and former pastor Jim Garlow to the gathering, and rumors surfaced that they also invited Donald Trump Jr. Charlie Kirk had agreed to speak at the event before his assassination, according to Dede Laugensen, president and CEO of Save the Persecuted Christians.
(Graham’s spokesperson told CT that though he was invited, his schedule did not permit him to attend. Trump Jr. allegedly canceled his planned trip to Armenia after hearing about the arrest of AAC leaders, according to Armenian media.)
But critics see the breakfast—said to be organized by a group called the Individual Believers Club—as an attempt to give religious legitimacy to a government that is persecuting the church as part of a broader effort to weaken challenges to its authority. Meanwhile, others say AAC is doing the bidding of Moscow due to its close ties with the Russian Orthodox Church, support for the Kremlin’s “traditional values,” and opposition to Armenia’s pursuit of a more democratic, European-oriented path.
“There’s always debate between church and state,” said John Eibner, international president of Christian Solidarity International. “But when you start imprisoning people to gain political control of the church, that’s persecution.”
To those who argue the government is within its rights to investigate clergy for corruption or involvement in a potential coup, Eibner said that is not what is happening here: “Church leaders are being imprisoned and thrown into jail without evidence or anything resembling due process.”
Led by Catholicos Karekin II, the AAC has become a vocal critic of Pashinyan’s government, accusing it of jeopardizing national interests and encroaching on the church’s historic authority. Though Armenia’s Constitution mandates a separation of church and state, it also recognizes the church’s “exclusive historical mission” in Armenian culture and grants the AAC official status as the national church. About 90 percent of the Armenian population claims nominal membership in the church.
In the last few months, authorities arrested archbishop Mikael Ajapahyan, archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, and bishop Mkrtich Proshyan, as well as Gevorg Nersisyan, the Catholicos’s brother, and his nephew Hambardzum Nersisyan. Pashinyan also called for Karekin II to step down, alleging in a Facebook post that the leader broke his vow of celibacy and has a child.
Authorities allege that church leaders abused their influence to incite antigovernment protests, interfere in politics, and attempt a foiled coup. The church rejects these accusations, portraying the government’s actions as an assault on religious freedom and Armenia’s Christian heritage.
The standoff between church and state comes as Pashinyan pursues ongoing peace with Azerbaijan and warmer relations with Türkiye, which continues to deny the 1915 Armenian genocide. Many in the church regard such policies as betrayals of Armenia’s traditional alliances, its national identity, and the still-fresh wounds of losing the war with Azerbaijan over control of the Nagorno-Karabakh region.
Organizations such as the influential Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) have denounced the prayer breakfast as an exercise in political image making. ANCA representatives warned American faith leaders and policymakers against joining what a human rights lawyer Robert Amsterdam called “a reputation-laundering breakfast” in an interview clip with Tucker Carlson reposted by the ANCA.
Eibner warned that Christians attending the prayer breakfast in Yerevan, Armenia’s capital, should do so “with eyes and ears open,” wary of the possibility that the event could serve as “a religious smokescreen for something unsavory.”
Pashinyan supporters, however, view the arrests of the church leaders differently. Giorgi Tumasyan, a representative of the Armenian community of Georgia and advocate for Georgia’s and Armenia’s integration into the European Union, sees the confrontation as a long-overdue reckoning with the church’s entanglement in post-Soviet networks of power and overt Russian influence. “When it comes to political influence, the Armenian church should not be under any other state’s influence than Armenia’s,” Tumasyan said.
Tumasyan believes the arrests do not amount to persecution but “liberation” of AAC from outside influence and corruption.
Tumasyan, who describes himself as part of a movement within the Armenian church to restore its sovereignty, argued that people should see the government’s actions—even the prayer breakfast—through the lens of Armenia’s geopolitical struggle to assert independence from Moscow while pursuing peace with Azerbaijan and normalization with Turkey. “The Armenian state is trying to usher in peace,” he said. “Karekin II is trying to keep the confrontation with Azerbaijan under direction from Moscow. But peace is of existential importance to Armenia.”
Tumasyan said the arrests and pressure on the current AAC leadership are only “a temporary process” to liberate it from another state’s interference and maintain peace. After that, Tumasyan said, “the sovereignty of the church—which is in the constitution—will be restored.”
Several sources identified Stepan Sargsyan, former governor of Armenia’s Lachin district, as organizer of the prayer breakfast. While the event is presented as a faith-based initiative, Sargsyan’s work with the My Step Foundation—the nonprofit chaired by Pashinyan’s wife, journalist Anna Hakobyan—has raised questions about the event’s political dimensions. Critics note that the overlap between the prayer breakfast’s leadership and Pashinyan’s inner circle suggests the government may have staged the event to bolster the government’s image and influence public perception at home and abroad.
Sargsyan previously lobbied in Washington, DC, on behalf of Christian Armenians in Azerbaijan, and Pashinyan attended the US National Prayer Breakfast in February 2025, a trip linked to the prime minister’s efforts to engage the Trump administration on the Armenia–Azerbaijan peace process and further cultivate Western allies amid Yerevan’s shift away from Moscow.
While Graham said he would not attend the breakfast, he struck a note of solidarity with Armenian Christians, praising the country’s faith heritage and acknowledging its suffering.
“Christianity came to Armenia more than 1,700 years ago,” he wrote in an email to CT. “Throughout history, the people of Armenia have endured immense suffering, even in recent times. Let us continue to pray for Armenia.”
For Armenian evangelicals, who are a small minority in the Christian-majority nation, the debate has exposed both opportunity and tension.
Levon Bardakjian, founding pastor of the Evangelical Church of Armenia in Yerevan, plans to attend the breakfast. But he hopes the focus will remain on faith rather than factional politics.
“My wish is that this is not a political event but a sincere devotional one,” he said. Bardakjian, who was baptized in the AAC, is sympathetic to the church but also frustrated with its hierarchy.
“The church as an institution is often worshiped rather than Christ,” he said. “The church fails to make Christ personal to maintain influence and power.”
Still, he resists reading every development through the lens of geopolitics or persecution. “Even in America, politicians will politicize prayer,” he said. “But the truth is that whatever it is we are doing, as Paul says, the name of Jesus must be made known.”
