Thought Leadership

The Church–State Confrontation in Armenia: A Constitutional Stress Test for Religious Liberty and Free Expression

Talin A Hitik, Executive Director, Armenia Center for Dispute Resolution

The recent initiation of criminal proceedings against Catholicos Karekin II, head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, marks a consequential moment in Armenia’s constitutional development. According to reporting by CivilNet, prosecutors opened a criminal case alleging obstruction of a judicial act and imposed a travel restriction preventing the Catholicos from attending an international ecclesiastical assembly abroad. Whatever the formal legal basis invoked, the state’s intervention into the internal governance of the country’s historic national church raises issues that extend well beyond the immediate dispute. It presents a constitutional stress test for Armenia’s commitments to freedom of religion, freedom of expression, and the rule of law itself.

I. The Distinction Between Rule of Law and Legal Instrumentalization

The rule of law is not satisfied by the mere existence or invocation of statutory authority. At minimum, it requires that legal powers be exercised in a manner that is general, predictable, proportionate, and insulated from partisan manipulation. When criminal process is deployed in the context of an escalating political dispute between the executive branch and a major religious institution, the burden on the state to demonstrate neutrality and necessity becomes particularly heavy.

The imposition of a travel ban—timed to coincide with a major international church gathering—invites scrutiny not simply as a procedural matter, but as a question of constitutional structure. The Armenian Constitution protects freedom of religion and the autonomy of religious organizations. It also protects freedom of expression, including political and moral speech that may be sharply critical of those in power. Where state action has the foreseeable effect of constraining ecclesiastical governance or chilling public dissent, courts and scholars alike must ask whether the state is vindicating law—or instrumentalizing it.

The difference is not semantic. “Rule of law” denotes a system in which law constrains power. “Rule by law” denotes a system in which law is used as an instrument of power.

II. Religious Autonomy as a Structural Guarantee

Religious liberty is often misconceived as merely an individual right of belief and worship. In constitutional democracies, however, it also encompasses a structural dimension: the autonomy of religious institutions in matters of internal governance. Interference in leadership, discipline, or ecclesiastical decision-making risks collapsing the distinction between civil authority and spiritual authority that modern constitutionalism carefully preserves.

This principle does not render religious actors immune from generally applicable laws. But it does require heightened caution where state intervention appears to arise in the context of political conflict rather than neutral enforcement. When criminal law is invoked against the highest ecclesiastical authority in the country, the constitutional inquiry must be exacting: Is the measure narrowly tailored? Is it proportionate? Is it consistent with the state’s obligation to avoid entanglement in doctrinal or governance disputes?

Absent persuasive answers, the appearance of political retaliation can be as damaging as proven abuse. Constitutional democracies depend not only on formal legality but on public confidence in the neutrality of legal institutions.

III. Free Expression and the Marketplace of Institutional Critique

The present confrontation also implicates freedom of expression in a broader sense. Religious institutions in Armenia have historically functioned as participants in national moral and political discourse. When clergy criticize government policy, advocate reform, or mobilize public opinion, they are engaging in speech at the core of constitutional protection.

Criminal proceedings that arise in close temporal and political proximity to such speech inevitably raise concerns of retaliatory enforcement. Even if charges are facially neutral, their deployment in a context of political dissent risks generating a chilling effect—not only for religious actors but for civil society more broadly. Constitutional guarantees of expression are hollow if their exercise predictably triggers coercive state response.

A democratic state confident in its legitimacy does not fear dissent; it answers it.

IV. The Strategic Cost of Constitutional Erosion

Armenia’s geopolitical position renders adherence to constitutional principles not merely a matter of domestic legitimacy but of strategic necessity. Investor confidence, diaspora engagement, and international partnerships are all conditioned—implicitly or explicitly—on perceptions of institutional stability and legal predictability. A state perceived as willing to leverage criminal process in political disputes risks reputational harm that extends well beyond the immediate controversy.

More fundamentally, Armenia cannot afford to erode the normative commitments that distinguish constitutional governance from majoritarian or executive dominance. Freedom of religious expression and freedom of speech are not ornamental ideals; they are structural preconditions for accountable government and durable social cohesion.

V. A Moment of Constitutional Choice

The confrontation between the Republic and the Church presents Armenia with a choice that constitutional democracies periodically confront: whether to preserve liberty in moments of tension, or to constrict it in the name of expedience.

If Armenia is to remain a rule-of-law state in more than name, it must ensure that criminal law is not perceived—domestically or internationally—as a mechanism for disciplining institutional critics. The appropriate response to ecclesiastical or political disagreement is not coercive suppression but lawful engagement within constitutional bounds.

The endurance of a constitutional order is measured less by its tranquility than by its restraint in moments of conflict. Armenia’s future as a rights-respecting democracy depends on reaffirming, rather than narrowing, its commitments to religious liberty and freedom of expression.

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