The arrests came amid Pashinian’s efforts to depose Catholicos Garegin II, the church’s supreme head highly critical of his domestic and foreign policies. Archbishop Bagrat Galstanian and 14 of his supporters were charged on June 25 with plotting to topple the government through “terrorist acts.”
Two days later, police and National Security Service (NSS) officers raided the church’s Mother See in Echmiadzin in a bid to arrest another archbishop, Mikael Ajapahian. But they failed to do that after meeting with fierce resistance from hundreds of angry priests and laymen. Ajapahian surrendered to a law-enforcement agency several hours after the unprecedented raid condemned by the Armenian opposition and many public figures.
Ajapahian was charged with calling for a violent regime change. Both he and Galstanian have described the separate criminal cases as politically motivated. Garegin’s office as well as the Armenian opposition have echoed that assessment.
In a Facebook post, Pashinian said Garegin’s condemnation of the arrests means that he “shares” the jailed archbishops’ plans to “carry out a military coup” and “create chaos in the country.” He went on to state in that context that in the town of Vagharshapat, of which Echmiadzin is a part, “no area can be closed to law-enforcement activities.”
Armenia - Catholicos Garegin II meets with youth activists in Aghveran, July 3, 2025.
Pashinian’s critics were quick to construe the implicit threat as a prelude to another NSS and police raid on the Mother See. Ajapahian’s legal team he thus ordered law-enforcement authorities to “carry out a search or arrests” there. A senior lawmaker representing the ruling Civil Contract party denied that.
The premier already threatened on June 26 to forcibly remove Garegin from Echmiadzin if the Catholicos continues to ignore his demands to resign. Pashinian’s detractors say that he declared war on the church in an effort to please Azerbaijan and/or neutralize a key source of opposition to his unilateral concessions to Armenia’s arch-foe.
The heads of the Armenian Church’s worldwide dioceses and other bishops condemned the “reprehensible campaign” and reaffirmed their “allegiance” to Garegin in a joint statement issued late on Friday following a meeting in Echmiadzin. They also deplored the arrests of the archbishops as well as Samvel Karapetian, a Russian-Armenian billionaire prosecuted right after pledging to defend the top clergy. The authorities, they said, are already “declaring them guilty before any court verdict.”
“We urge the authorities of Armenia to immediately release our spiritual brothers, the national benefactor, and their associates, and to act strictly within the law, ensuring their right to a fair trial,” added their statement.