Khachatrian, who heads the Chancellery of the church’s Mother See in Echmiadzin, was arrested in early December on a drug-related charge rejected by him as politically motivated. The Investigative Committee claims that he had one of his aides plant a marijuana joint in the backpack of a protester who demanded Garegin’s resignation in 2018.
A Yerevan court of first instance extended Khachatrian’s pre-trial arrest by two months as recently as on February 3. The decision was overturned by Armenia’s Court of Appeals. The archbishop walked free from prison later in the day.
“In general, prisons are called correctional institutions,” he told reporters. “I’m happy to say that I have not been ‘corrected’ in that regard and nothing has changed in my views and positions.”
Khachatrian, who is a vocal critic of Pashinian, also condemned the campaign against the Catholicos as a “disgrace.”
Khachatrian shared a prison cell with Archbishop Bagrat Galstanian, who was arrested June 25 the day before Pashinian threatened to forcibly remove the church’s supreme head from his Echmiadzin headquarters. Galstanian and his 17 supporters are now standing trial on coup charges denied by them.
Another outspoken archbishop, Mikael Ajapahian, was arrested on June 27 and subsequently sentenced to two years in prison on charges of calling for a violent regime change. The crackdown continued with the arrest in October of Bishop Mkrtich Proshian, who is also Garegin’s nephew. Proshian denies forcing his subordinates to attend opposition rallies held in the run-up to 2021 parliamentary elections.
Both Ajapahian and Proshian were moved to house arrest last month. Galstanian is thus the only clergyman remaining behind bars.
Six other bishops loyal to Garegin as well as the Catholicos himself were indicted last month. The Investigative Committee did not arrest any of them. Still, it banned them from leaving Armenia to attend an emergency meeting of the church’s top clergy in Austria. Twenty-five bishops and archbishops who attended the meeting issued on February 19 a joint statement voicing support for Garegin and condemning the “unfounded prosecution” of the Catholicos and other clerics.