Church Responds to Alen Simonyan's 'Tax Payment' Statement

Vengeance, falsehood, and ignorance: this is how the Church has reacted to the statement made by the President of the National Assembly, Alen Simonyan, regarding the need to discuss the issue of incorporating the Church into the tax system in the near future.

“The person in question, seemingly a prizewinner in arrogance, is also invulnerable in the realm of pompousness and uniquely unmatched in ignorance. If you can’t think before you speak, at least try to contemplate afterward. Even then, it wouldn’t be difficult to ascertain that claims about the Church not paying taxes are, to put it mildly, false,” said Archbishop T. Arshak Khachatryan, the head of the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, in a conversation with Sputnik Armenia.

In a discussion with the media, the leader of the Shirak Diocese, Mikhail Ajapahyan, described Simonyan’s statement as a quest for revenge. According to him, representatives of the government have transformed state thinking into personal vendetta.

“The Church has entered an ideological struggle; if you can, win with ideological means,” said the diocesan leader. He added that they are trying to fight against the Church using methods of repression, but that they will not succeed.

It should be noted that according to data published by the State Revenue Committee (SRC), the Armenian Apostolic Church not only pays taxes but also ranks 488th among the 1000 taxpayers as of the first quarter of 2024. The Church has numerous clergy and employees, benefiting from various services, and naturally, taxes are paid. In Armenia, as in other countries, the Church is exempt from certain types of taxes due to the nature of its educational, social, and charitable activities, which is also stipulated by the law regulating church-state relations in Armenia.