Armenian authorities create a coordinating council to reform the Church

Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan. Photo: newsarmenia

On the night of January 5, 2026, Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced the creation of a coordinating council to reform the Church, Armenia Today reports.

The council includes Pashinyan and 10 bishops who signed a joint statement on launching reforms of the Armenian Church due to a governance crisis, a crisis of spiritual life, and the Church’s involvement in political processes.

Among the reforms, the participants in the coordinating council listed: removing the head of the Armenian Church, electing a locum tenens of the Catholicos, holding elections for the head of the Church, and adopting a charter that will ensure the clergy’s moral conduct and transparency of financial operations.

Earlier, the UOJ wrote that Pashinyan had called for people to gather for a “cross procession” in support of “church reforms.”

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