In historic visit, Vance hails Armenia as 'bedrock of Christian civilization,' deletes reference to genocide

By Ian M. Giatti, Christian Post Reporter Tuesday, February 10, 2026

Vice President JD Vance hailed Armenia as a “bedrock of Christian civilization and culture” and later deleted a post referring to the Armenian genocide during a historic visit to the war-torn country amid ongoing tensions between one of the world's first national churches and Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.

Vance arrived in Armenia on Monday, marking the first-ever visit by a sitting U.S. vice president or president as part of the Trump administration's push to offer economic incentives as it works toward a U.S.-brokered peace agreement to end the long-running conflict between Armenia and the neighboring Muslim-majority Azerbaijan.

The vice president signed an agreement with Pashinyan to move ahead with a civil nuclear energy deal, along with a U.S. pledge to export advanced microchips and surveillance drones to Armenia, according to Associated Press. 

During the visit, Vance and second lady Usha Vance placed flowers at Tsitsernakaberd, the official state memorial dedicated to the up to 1.5 million Armenian Christians who were killed in the Armenian genocide of 1915-1916. The U.S., under former President Joe Biden, is among more than three dozen countries that have officially recognized the genocide committed under the Ottoman Empire, now modern-day Turkey.

While Vance initially shared a video of the visit on his official VP account on X with a caption stating Vance “attended a wreath laying ceremony at the Armenian Genocide memorial to honor the victims of the 1915 Armenian genocide," it was deleted Tuesday morning. 

A short time later, VP Press Secretary Taylor Van Kirk shared another post which omitted any reference to the Armenian genocide, only chronicling the Vances as they “lay flowers at the eternal flame and sign the guest book on the final day of their visit to Armenia.”

While it's not clear why the post was deleted, President Trump has in the past faced criticism from Armenian advocacy groups for his refusal to recognize the Armenian genocide, with some calling it a "disgraceful surrender to Turkish threats."

During a joint press conference with Pashinyan, Vance shared his admiration for Armenia and its rich Christian heritage.

“This is one of the oldest Christian countries in the entire world, a true bedrock of Christian civilization and culture,” the vice president said. “As a devout Christian myself, I know the meaning of this country to the entire world and to the religion that the prime minister and I share."

The Vances arrived in the Armenian capital after a stop in Milan for the Winter Olympics. Vance travelled to Azerbaijan on Tuesday. 

His visit comes just months after President Donald Trump hosted a peace summit at the White House with Pashinyan and Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev on Aug. 8, where the two leaders signed a peace agreement and memorandum of understanding aimed at ending decades of conflict.

As part of the deal, Armenia, believed to be the first Christian nation dating back to 301 A.D., agreed to allow a transit corridor through its territory, named the "Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity." The U.S. will develop a route connecting Azerbaijan and the Nakhchivan exclave, which are separated by a 20-mile-wide strip of Armenian territory. The corridor will operate under Armenian law.

Following the summit, Pashinyan hailed the agreement as a "significant milestone" in Armenian-Azerbaijani relations and expressed gratitude to Trump for his personal engagement and "resolute commitment to peace," which Pashinyan said made the agreement possible. 

"We are laying a foundation to write a better story than the one we had in the past," the Armenian prime minister said. 

The conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia dates back to the 1980s, when the mostly ethnic-Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh, also known as Artsakh, broke away from Muslim-majority Azerbaijan. 

After decades of conflict and a months-long military blockade, Azerbaijan launched an offensive in 2023, displacing over 120,000 Artsakh Armenians from their homes and into Armenia proper. 

Vance's visit comes amid a 2026 election year and Pashinyan's ongoing dispute with church leaders. In the last year, the Armenian government has arrested several church leaders and four senior clerics, which has garnered criticism from international Christian rights activists. 

The Armenian Apostolic Church and Pashinyan have been engaged in a tense standoff since mid-2024, following Armenia's agreement to cede several border villages to Azerbaijan as part of an effort to normalize relations. In response, church leaders helped organize mass demonstrations. Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, who led an opposition movement called Sacred Struggle and is from a border region impacted by the cession to Azerbaijan, was arrested with 13 others last June and charged with orchestrating a plot to overthrow the government. 

From prison, Galstanyan wrote a letter to Vance last week stating that the "Christian Armenian nation faces an existential threat."

The Armenian government has charged archbishops and bishops with various charges, including plotting to overthrow the government, coercing citizens to join protests, obstructing judicial acts, and, in one case, involvement in planting drugs during a 2018 demonstration.

Church leaders have accused Pashinyan of attempting to override church leadership by branding Catholicos Karekin II, the global head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, a “threat to national security.”

Joel Veldkamp, the head of international communications at the Switzerland-based NGO Christian Solidarity International, is among advocates who have voiced concern about the escalating tensions between the church and government. He warned at a congressional briefing in November that the "Armenian prime minister's campaign against the church" could put diplomatic relations with the U.S. at risk. 

“President Trump has invested a great deal of his time, energy and political capital to promote the peace process between Armenia and Azerbaijan," Veldkamp said at the time. "The administration is clearly enthusiastic about the potential here, and rightly so — a U.S.-mediated peace deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan promises a faster trade route across Eurasia that bypasses Russia and Iran and would greatly expand U.S. influence in this crucial region."