Former Secretary of the Security Council of Artsakh Vitaly Balasanyan said no one has the right to interfere in the internal affairs of the Armenian Church.

“It is dangerous what the country’s authorities have begun. I am confident they will soon refrain from this, and Nikol Pashinyan himself must come to the church courtyard, repent and ask forgiveness from God and the clergy,” he said in the courtyard of the Mother See, Aysor.am reported.

Balasanyan added that the ongoing developments are directed not against the Catholicos personally, but against the Church itself.

He also expressed confidence that those high-ranking clergymen who have strayed from their path will soon come to the Mother See and repent.

“I am convinced that the Catholicos will also forgive them,” Balasanyan said.

On February 14, it became known that Armenia’s Prosecutor’s Office initiated criminal proceedings against Catholicos of All Armenians Karekin II for failing to comply with a court ruling in the case of the former head of the Masis Diocese and banned him from leaving Armenia.