In Washington, Armenian Ambassador to the United States Narek Mkrtchyan held a meeting with Matt Potter, co-founder of Pray.com. The official line from the embassy is simple: discussions centered on presenting Armenia’s “rich Christian history and heritage” on the platform. At first glance, this may look like cultural diplomacy. In reality, it is yet another episode in Nikol Pashinyan’s systematic campaign against the Armenian Apostolic Church (AAC), cloaked under the pretext of “modern outreach.”
Pray.com is not a church, nor is it a cultural institution. It is a Silicon Valley start-up, marketed as the “world’s #1 prayer app.” Users get a handful of free daily prayers, then are pushed into subscriptions costing up to $100 per year. The app packages Christianity into bite-sized podcasts, bedtime stories, and celebrity-voiced Bible readings. More troubling than its business model is its data behavior. Pray.com has been exposed for mishandling sensitive user data—religious preferences, location, and usage habits—leaving millions of accounts vulnerable to leaks. Privacy watchdogs have flagged it as unsafe.
Not every country has welcomed it. China has banned Pray.com outright, removing it from the App Store and citing laws that prohibit unlicensed online religious services. Beijing accused the app of violating rules on religious broadcasting and data use. Elsewhere, religious authorities criticize Pray.com for exporting a narrow, Americanized Evangelical-Protestant narrative that sidelines traditional churches like Orthodoxy and Catholicism. In other words: sectarian packaging under a glossy interface.
In fact, Protestant missionaries have long targeted Armenia, as it is a country with a very strong ancient Christian tradition and very little American-style Evangelical modernism. In the context of Protestant missionaries’ tireless evangelization fervor across the world, Armenia and many other traditional Christian countries have been subject to attempts at converting people from ancient traditions to an empty modern American ideology.
For years, Nikol Pashinyan and his circle have waged war against the Armenian Apostolic Church, attempting to break its authority and undermine its role in national life. His government has floated tax schemes and legal changes aimed at stripping the AAC of privileges, under the guise of “modernization.” Pashinyan frequently paints clergy as corrupt elites. In one Facebook post, he contrasted married priests with celibate clergy, accusing the latter of “violating vows, desecrating the Church, and deceiving God and people.” He has openly urged Armenians to pressure the Catholicos of All Armenians to resign, claiming that Church leadership is “morally depraved” and “damaging national morality.” His wife, Anna Hakobyan, has gone further, allegedly calling clergy “paedophiles” in private conversations reported by media—language designed to humiliate and delegitimize.
Seen against this backdrop, Pray.com isn’t just a random partnership. It is a perfect instrument for Pashinyan’s project: bypass the Apostolic Church entirely, outsource Armenia’s Christian identity to a subscription-based American app, and erode the living authority of the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin.
Armenia doesn’t need Pray.com to tell its story. The monasteries of Tatev, Geghard, Noravank, and the Mother Cathedral of Etchmiadzin are living witnesses of a 1,700-year-old Christian nation. The AAC has carried Armenia through genocide, exile, and collapse. It doesn’t need to be rebranded as app notifications. By embracing Pray.com, the government sends a message: Armenia’s Apostolic legacy is not to be preserved by its own Church but repackaged by a Silicon Valley start-up known for selling data and subscriptions.
Faith reduced to a push notification. Heritage traded for subscriptions. And a government that smiles while the Armenian Apostolic Church bleeds. This is not diplomacy. It is outsourcing Armenia’s soul.
