Catholic News Agency portal (November 21, 2025) reports on alleged persecution of the Armenian Apostolic Church by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s government, citing claims from human rights advocates about clergy detentions ahead of 2026 elections. The article frames this as a threat to Armenia’s status as “the oldest Christian nation,” quoting lawyer Peter Flew and Christian Solidarity International’s Joel Veldkamp urging U.S. intervention. It references Catholicos Karekin II’s September 2025 meeting with antipope Leo XIV at Castel Gandolfo. The piece exemplifies modernist confusion in elevating schismatics while ignoring Armenia’s 1,700-year rejection of Roman primacy.
Naturalism Disguised as Religious Defense
The article’s central error lies in its idolatry of “human rights” over divine law. Pius XI condemned this inversion in Quas Primas, stating: “When once men recognize, both in private and in public life, that Christ is King, society will at last receive the great blessings of real liberty, well-ordered discipline, peace and harmony.” By framing Armenia’s crisis through secular humanitarianism rather than Armenia’s formal heresy against Catholic unity, the report perpetuates the very error enabling persecution – the divorce of civil authority from submission to Christ the King.
Veldkamp’s lament that “the U.S. government [should] break the silence” exposes the bankruptcy of seeking salvation from apostate regimes. As Leo XIII taught in Immortale Dei: “States cannot without criminality act as if God did not exist or cast off the care of religion.” Armenia’s persecution of schismatics stems precisely from adopting the West’s godless conception of the state – yet the “human rights” framework offers only a mirror image of the same error, reducing religion to a private opinion competing for state tolerance.
Ecumenical Betrayal of Catholic Unity
The report’s reference to Karekin II’s September 2025 meeting with antipope Leo XIV at Castel Gandolfo reveals its ecumenical rot. The Armenian Apostolic Church remains formally schismatic since rejecting the Council of Chalcedon (451 AD), with Pius XII affirming in Sempiternus Rex (1951) that “the unity of the Church cannot be other than unity in faith.” The article’s concern for Armenian Christianity ignores that a schismatic body preserving rituals while rejecting Roman primacy constitutes what St. Robert Bellarmine called “ecclesia non proprie” – a church only improperly so called.
Nowhere does the article mention Armenia’s 1,700-year denial of papal supremacy, nor Karekin II’s heretical 1996 declaration that “the Bishop of Rome is primus inter pares without jurisdiction over other Churches.” This omission flows from the conciliar sect’s embrace of religious indifferentism condemned in Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors (1864): “Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true” (Error 15). To weep for schismatics persecuted by secularists while ignoring their formal heresy completes the modernist circle of apostasy.
False Dichotomy Between Church and State
Prime Minister Pashinyan’s alleged desire for “a future Armenia where the church has no social or political influence” merely implements Vatican II’s heresy of religious liberty. The article treats this as novel oppression rather than the inevitable fruit of Dignitatis Humanae’s rebellion against Quas Primas. When Flew complains that “churches are not represented here because they’ve been scared,” he unwittingly echoes Pius XI’s warning about states “which would fain separate the Church from the State” (Quas Primas).
Armenia’s tragedy stems from abandoning its historical Catholic roots – albeit imperfectly held – for either secular nationalism or schismatic traditionalism. The true solution lies not in U.S. intervention but in Armenia’s return to Roman obedience, for as Pope Pius XI declared: “Nations will be reminded by the annual celebration of this feast that not only private individuals but also rulers and princes are bound to give public honor and obedience to Christ.”
The Silence on Supernatural Realities
Most damning is the article’s complete omission of sacramental validity, grace, or eternal salvation. Nowhere does it mention that Armenian Apostolic orders are doubtfully valid due to centuries of irregular consecrations, rendering their “sacraments” spiritually void. St. Pius X’s Lamentabili Sane condemned the modernist error that “the sacraments are intended only to call to mind the ever-beneficent presence of the Creator” (Proposition 41) – precisely the reductionism displayed when Flew treats churches as mere cultural heritage sites rather than channels of sanctifying grace.
The report’s concern for “Armenia’s heritage as the oldest Christian nation” ignores St. Augustine’s teaching that “what does not exist according to the truth is not the Church” (Contra Epistolam Parmeniani). A nation preserving ritualistic shells while rejecting Catholic unity mocks its Christian patrimony. Until Armenia returns to communion with Rome – the sole ark of salvation – no amount of “human rights” advocacy will avert its spiritual and temporal ruin.
Source:
Human rights advocates decry Armenian government crackdown on Christian church (catholicnewsagency.com)
Date: 21.11.2025