“This action is a manifestation of the recent repression unleashed against the Church and a continuation of the political persecution of clergy,” read a statement released by the church’s Mother See in Echmiadzin.
It demanded the immediate release of Archbishop Arshak Khachatrian and three other senior clerics arrested earlier this year.
Khachatrian was arrested on Thursday on drug-related charges strongly denied by him. Armenia’s Investigative Committee claims that in 2018 he had a deacon subordinate to him and a “still unidentified person” plant marijuana in the backpack of a protester demanding Garegin’s resignation.
Khachatrian’s lawyers said on Friday that the law-enforcement agency has not come up with any incriminating testimony against him or other evidence in support of the accusation.
“This case is not only fabricated but also ridiculous and absurd,” one of them, Sergei Harutiunian, told reporters.
Harutiunian spoke after a judge in Yerevan allowed investigators to hold Khachatrian in pre-trial detention for the next two months. The same judge, Masis Melkonian, sanctioned the earlier arrests of Archbishops Bagrat Galstanian and Mikael Ajapahian facing different charges also rejected by them as politically motivated.
Khachatrian, who is a vocal critical of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, acknowledged the possibility of his arrest at a news conference held on Monday. He said he is undaunted by such a prospect and will not resign or join a dozen other bishops in calling for Garegin’s resignation.
Harutiunian said that the latest arrest is aimed at stepping up the pressure on the Catholicos. The lawyer suggested that the authorities may also arrest the supreme head of the Armenian Church, who remains adamant in rejecting Pashinian’s demands for his resignation.
Armenia - Catholicos Garegin II, center, addresses worshippers during a religious festival in Echmiadzin, June 22, 2025.
Khachatrian’s arrest came as Garegin visited France’s second largest city of Marseille, meeting with members of the local Armenian community as well as Mayor Benoit Payan and French parliamentarians. In a post on X, Payan said he received Garegin “with an immense honor.” The Catholicos condemned the Armenian authorities’ “anti-church policy” and “illegal repressions” during a prayer service held an Armenian church there later in the day.
Pashinian said until this week that the main reason why he is trying to oust Garegin and other top clerics at odds with him is that they have had secret sex affairs in breach of their vows of celibacy. He gave a different reason for his campaign in the Armenian parliament on Wednesday, effectively accusing Garegin of spying for the intelligence service of an unnamed foreign country.
“I don't need a Catholicos who obeys me, I need a Catholicos who doesn't obey and report to lieutenants of a foreign special service on a daily basis,” the premier told the Armenian parliament.
Pashinian did not elaborate on his allegations. Nor have Armenian law-enforcement announced relevant criminal proceedings against the Catholicos so far.
“If you accuse someone of being a foreign agent, a criminal case should be opened,” Artur Khachatrian, an opposition parliamentarian, noted on Friday. “He says there is a person he suspects of being a spy, but no action follows that.”
Another lawmaker, Hayk Mamijanian, charged that Pashinian himself has been acting on foreign states’ orders in his intensifying crackdown. He clearly referred to Azerbaijan whose government regularly attacks the Armenian Church.
Garegin again accused Azerbaijan of committing ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh and illegally occupying Armenian border areas when he attended an international conference in Switzerland in late May. Pashinian began attacking the church’s top clergy right after that.