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Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has underscored the importance of separation of church and state.
He made the comments during a meeting with the representatives of the Armenian community of Switzerland when asked on the relationship between the government and the Church.
“The state should not interfere in church affairs and the church should not interfere in state affairs,” Pashinyan said. He added that the current relations are the way they should be, except for a few nuances.
The Prime Minister said that many people had called for a new Catholicos to be elected after the 2018 revolution.
“I have publicly said that it is not the government’s business who will be Catholicos, because the Catholicos is first of all the Catholicos of All Armenians. It’s not up to me. But everyone suspected that allegedly we were inciting or organizing the manifestations that took place then, but that is not true. If we had organized it, I think you are all convinced that in 2018 we would have swiftly achieved a result,” Pashinyan said, emphasizing that no such move has ever been part of his administration’s agenda.
Pashinyan said that a representative of the Diaspora has asked him whether there are problems in the relationship between the government and the Church. “I said that in my opinion the church should be transparent. Everyone demands transparency from the government. And we agree with this. And now we say, not just us, but also our friends, our family, those who we have greeted just once should be transparent,” Pashinyan said, referring to the new universal income declaration system. “And why shouldn’t the church be transparent too?”
As an example, the PM noted that printing a POS receipt is mandatory whenever anything is sold. “So there is a question, if you are selling candles, why shouldn’t you print a POS receipt. They counter by saying you want to tax the church. We answer that we want the tax legislation to function in Armenia. But we are assuming an obligation, the entire taxes generated as a result of the church activities will be returned to the church, none of it will stay in the budget. Moreover, if it turns out that the church functions require additional funding in Armenia, we will also consider having additional funding,” the PM said.