The court of first instance in Armenia’s central Aragatsotn province made the decision more than two weeks after extending the arrest of Bishop Mkrtich Proshian by one month at the start of his trial. Prosecutors had demanded a three-month extension.
Proshian, who heads the Aragatsotn Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church and is also a nephew of Garegin, was arrested in October on charges of illegally ordering his subordinates to attend opposition rallies and vote against Pashinian’s party in 2021 parliamentary elections. He denies the accusations. The church’s Mother See in Echmiadzin also rejects them as politically motivated.
On the day of Proshian’s arrest, Armenia’s Investigative Committee also rounded up at least 12 other Aragatsotn priests. All but one of them were freed without charge hours later.
The criminal case against Proshian is understood to be based on testimony given by two other local priests who were defrocked by the Catholicos after pledging allegiance to Pashinian. Both men continue to occupy their churches with the help of law-enforcement officers.
Three archbishops were also arrested and indicted after Pashinian began pressuring the supreme head of the Armenian Church to resign in June. They too deny different charges levelled against them.
Archbishop Mikael Ajapahian, who heads the church diocese in the northwestern Shirak province, was sentenced in October to two years in prison for calling for a violent overthrow of the Armenian government. Citing Ajapahian’s health issues, Armenia’s Court of Appeals granted him house arrest last week. The 63-year-old cleric known as a vocal critic of Pashinian underwent another surgery in a Yerevan hospital earlier this week. Another, even more outspoken archbishop, Bagrat Galstanian, is standing trial together with his 17 supporters accused of plotting “terrorist acts” in a bid to seize power.
Six other archbishops and bishops loyal to Garegin were indicted but not arrested on January 31. A law-enforcement agency banned them from leaving Armenia to attend an emergency conference of the church’s top clergy in Austria. The Mother See believes that Pashinian is thus trying to scuttle the conference scheduled for February 16-19. It is still not clear whether it will go ahead as planned.
Critics maintain that Pashinian’s drive to depose Garegin violates Armenia’s constitution and laws guaranteeing the autonomy of the ancient church and its separation from the state. Two Western religious rights groups echoed last week these claims denied by Pashinian. One of them, the Vienna-based the Forum for Religious Freedom Europe, spoke of “grave threats to freedom of religion or belief” in Armenia.