Fourth Armenian senior cleric arrested as tensions surge between Pashinyan, church

Armenian authorities have ordered a two-month pre-trial detention for Archbishop Arshak Khachatryan, Chancellor of Etchmiadzin, marking a new escalation in the widening confrontation between the government and the hierarchy of the Armenian Apostolic Church.

Judge Masis Melkonyan approved the investigative body’s request for arrest, following Khachatryan’s detention on December 4, Caliber.Az reports, citing Armenian media.

His lawyer, Arsen Babayan, confirmed the detention and later stated that investigators allege the archbishop instructed an individual in 2018 to plant narcotics in the bag of an activist protesting against Catholicos of All Armenians Garegin II, in an attempt to discredit the demonstrators. Babayan argued, however, that the article under which Khachatryan has been charged—drug trafficking—does not correspond to the specifics of the alleged episode.

Khachatryan’s arrest makes him the fourth high-ranking cleric of the Armenian Apostolic Church currently in custody. Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, Primate of the Diocese of Shirak, Mikael Ajapahian  and Primate of the Diocese of Aragatsotn, Bishop Mkrtich Proshyan, all remain in pre-trial detention. The media also recall that on October 25 an intimate video surfaced on a Telegram channel—later deleted—whose authors claimed it depicted Khachatryan with his uncle’s wife.

Against this backdrop of growing pressure on the Church, the Armenian newspaper Zhoghovurd reports that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan may now be preparing to move against the Church’s supreme leader, Catholicos Garegin II. According to the paper’s sources, the arrest of Archbishop Khachatryan is viewed as a precursor to a broader operation aimed at isolating the Catholicos.

Zhoghovurd writes that Pashinyan is allegedly seeking to expand the number of clergy willing to break with the Catholicos and publicly call for his resignation “in the name of renewing the Church and spiritual life.” The newspaper claims that law-enforcement agencies are already working toward the possible arrest of Garegin II and that the purported legal grounds are considered secondary to the objective of removing him from the public arena.

The report further alleges that once the Catholicos is isolated, a resignation letter—whether authentic or fabricated—may be circulated online to initiate a formal process of his removal.

By Vafa Guliyeva