BY APPO JABARIAN, on Christmas Day January 6 thousands of Armenian faithful joined Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in a Christmas pilgrimage in Yerevan that began at 1:30 p.m. at Saint Gregory the Illuminator Cathedral and ended near Katoghike Holy Mother of God Church in downtown Yerevan, an event welcomed by the Armenian Church Reform of America alongside the January 5 joint statement by Pashinyan and several high-ranking clergymen signaling Yerevan’s official alignment with the worldwide movement to reform the Armenian Apostolic Church, a process that began in 2018 in Armenian communities including Los Angeles, Fresno, Yerevan, Paris-Nice, Varna, Berlin and elsewhere, following the establishment of Armenian Church Reform of America in the wake of its sister movement in Armenia under the banner “New Armenia, New Catholicos,” which sought to dethrone Catholicos Karekin II, whom it calls the usurper of the Holy Throne of Etchmiadzin, and which expanded in the United States under the banner “New Catholicos, New Primate” to remove not only Karekin II but also his allies including Archbishop Hovnan Derderian of the Western Diocese and Archbishop Yezras Nersisyan of Russia, while praising Pashinyan’s statement that the procession marked the Holy Nativity of Jesus Christ, affirmed faithfulness to Armenian Apostolic tradition, and expressed support for church reform, as Armenian Church Reform of America continues calling on the faithful in Armenia and the former Soviet space to liberate the Church from Russian domination rooted in the 1836 Tsarist Polozhenie, a statute that subordinated the Church to Russian authority and was officially abolished in 1917 but revived under Soviet rule and later perpetuated through control of church elections, despite a period of relative independence under Catholicoses Vazken I and Karekin I, until the Russian-backed election of Karekin II on October 27, 1999, coinciding with the Armenian parliament assassinations, an event the movement views as a hijacking of the Church, leading reform advocates to argue that true democratic governance—where primates and delegates are elected by the people as in the free world—must replace the current system, and culminating in Pashinyan’s January 6 declaration rejecting the use of the Armenian Apostolic Church as a tool of hybrid warfare against Armenian sovereignty, labeling Karekin II illegitimate, emphasizing that the procession was peaceful and rooted in Christian love and determination for reform, and noting that he attended Christmas Mass at Saint Gregory the Illuminator Cathedral earlier that morning.