Artur Hovhannisyan, secretary of the ruling Civil Contract faction in Armenia’s National Assembly, rejected claims that the National Security Service (NSS) or others had pressured clergymen or censored their speech.

Speaking to journalists, he said, “These meetings relate only to whether the clergy in question align with the Church reform agenda. We check this through various individuals familiar with the clergy, and the Prime Minister decides whether to attend a given liturgy based on that. There’s no question of censorship or coercion,” reports Auroranews.am .

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan is expected to attend a liturgy at Gyumri’s Yot Verk (Seven Wounds) Church. Initially, he had planned to attend a service at Saint Hakob Church in Gyumri, but the clergy there reportedly refused to omit the name of Catholicos Karekin II during the liturgy, Aysor.am reports.

Sources claimed that even NSS agents visited the church, urging Fr. Ruben to comply with Pashinyan’s request. However, Fr. Ruben refused, as did Fr. Varuzhan, both insisting that they would not exclude the Catholicos's name from the service.

Subsequently, it was announced that no priest from the Shirak Diocese would officiate at the Yot Verk church on December 7. This was confirmed by Bishop Narek Avagyan, who currently leads the Shirak Diocese temporarily due to the arrest of Archbishop Mikael Ajapahyan.

On December 4, following a cabinet session, Pashinyan did not deny reports that NSS officers had been meeting with clergy, encouraging them to exclude the Catholicos’s name during mass. He stated that he only attends services where the Catholicos is not mentioned.