Armenian Apostolic Church should be included in tax system - Pashinyan

YEREVAN. April 21 (Interfax) - The Armenian Apostolic Church should be included in the universal tax filing system, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said.

"Representatives of the clergy cannot be outside the universal tax filing system. We have long said that the Church must pay taxes," Pashinyan said while presenting the election platform of his Civil Contract party on Tuesday. He said that the Church does not want to be accountable to the people. "But the Church is the people, as no Catholicos has ever been a Church," Pashinyan said.

The Church, "having abandoned spiritual sermons, is busy with political sermons," he added.

"Our holy shrine, the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin [the spiritual center of the Armenian Church], has been desecrated and infected. And the people should make a decision during the elections," Pashinyan said.

As reported, Pashinyan has called for the abdication of Catholicos of all Armenians Karekin II, whom he views as a threat to national security. Pashinyan said recently that the Catholicos of All Armenians had been defrocked, had seized the patriarchal throne, broken his vow of celibacy, and must explain to the public why he has a wife and children.

The ruling Civil Contract party included the issue of replacing the Catholicos of All Armenians in its election platform. The country's next parliamentary elections will be held on June 7.