On June 17, Alen Simonyan, the Speaker of the National Assembly of Armenia, and Nikol Pashinyan, the Prime Minister of Armenia, made strong statements against the opposition and the leadership of the Armenian Apostolic Church in separate remarks and posts.
During a briefing at the National Assembly, Simonyan claimed that the opposition in the country was extremely weak and politically inexperienced. "They are very far from politics; they are only learning what politics is, because in their time there was no politics, there were only single-handed teams and rules of the game," Simonyan stated. He dismissed the idea of giving the opposition lessons in political science, adding, "Let the opposition go and train, form something that can be said, and discuss it with the GD."
On the same day, Pashinyan harshly criticized the Armenian Apostolic Church’s leadership in a Facebook post, addressing Ktrich Nersisyan and the Catholicos of All Armenians, Garegin II. Referring to Arshak Khachatryan, a senior church cleric, Pashinyan wrote, "Ktrich Nersisyan, tell your debauched ‘saint’ Arshak to sit quietly in his place," and further emphasized, "In the literal sense of the word, let him sit quietly in his place, and in the literal sense of the word, he is a debauched man."
Pashinyan justified his language by citing the "Code of Armenian Church Rules," a centuries-old collection of ecclesiastical conduct regulations. He asserted that, according to these rules, any (arch)bishop labeled a debauchee, including "Saint" Arshak, must be deposed. "These very words are written in the collection of rules of our Church," Pashinyan stated. He concluded by saying they would await a response from Ktrich Nersisyan and that further commentary would adhere strictly to the definitions outlined in the "Code of Armenian Church Rules," refusing to engage in what he described with a crude slang expression.