Garegin thus became the first the supreme head of the church prosecuted in Armenia’s post-Soviet history. Even Soviet authorities had never formally prosecuted an Armenian Catholicos.
The accusations levelled against Garegin stem from his January 27 decision to defrock a bishop involved in Pashinian’s controversial campaign to oust the Catholicos. The bishop, Gevorg Saroyan, was dismissed in January as head of the church’s Masyatsotn Diocese encompassing parts of Armenia’s southern Ararat province.
With Pashinian’s encouragement, Saroyan refused to obey the decision and went on to challenge it in court. In an unprecedented injunction, a district court ruled on January 16 that Saroyan must be reinstated pending its verdict on the lawsuit. Lawyers representing the church maintain that Armenian courts have no jurisdiction over internal church affairs.
The Investigative Committee opened the criminal case following Saroyan’s defrocking recommended by the church’s Supreme Spiritual Council. It charged on January 31 six bishops sitting on the council with obstructing the execution of the judicial act. They were banned from leaving Armenia to attend a delayed emergency conference of bishops in the Austrian city of Sankt Polten scheduled for February 16-19.
The law-enforcement agency brought the same accusation against Garegin, according to Ara Zohrabian, a lawyer representing the church. Zohrabian said it banned him from leaving the country before attempting to interrogate him.
“This is a direct interference in the internal affairs of the church,” Zohrabian said, accusing the Armenian authorities of trying to scuttle the conference.
The church’s Mother See in Echmiadzin echoed the accusation in a separate statement. It condemned the indictment as illegal and “disrespectful to millions of believers and to the centuries-old church.” It did not say whether the Sankt Polten meeting will be cancelled or held via video link.
The conference was originally scheduled to take place in Echmiadzin from December 10-12. Garegin postponed it because of what the Mother See described as “repressions against clergy.” Critics say Pashinian wants to prevent the rescheduled meeting because it would almost certainly demonstrate that the Catholicos continues to enjoy the top clergy’s backing despite the Armenian premier’s eight-month campaign to depose him.
Armenia - Masked officers of the National Security Service are forced to leave the Echmiadzin headquarters of the Armenian Apostolic Church, June 27, 2025.
Pashinian indicated his intention to scuttle the conference on Friday when he reacted furiously to a joint statement by eight prominent members of the Armenian communities in the United States and Europe condemning his “attacks” on the church. They also stressed the significance of the planned ecclesiastical meeting in Austria.
“The whole thing is about taking the Catholicosate out of Armenia, and I will not allow that. If additional measures need to be taken for that, they will be taken,” Pashinian told reporters.
“I want to warn some representatives of the Diaspora that their involvement in this plot is seriously undermining Armenia’s state security and the Republic of Armenia is not going to stand by and look on,” he said. “There were will be a very tough response.”
Pashinian’s critics portrayed the threats as further proof that he is violating an Armenian constitutional provision guaranteeing the church’s separation from the state and illegally directing the actions of law-enforcement authorities.
Three other archbishops and one bishop of the Armenian Church were arrested on various charges last year amid Pashinian’s efforts to depose Garegin. They all reject the accusations as politically motivated. Two of them were moved to house arrest earlier this year. The Catholicos has refused to step down despite the crackdown that has also targeted some of his relatives.
Pashinian began his campaign last May right after Garegin accused Azerbaijan of committing ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh, destroying the region’s Armenian churches and illegally occupying Armenian border areas during an international conference in Switzerland. The premier’s detractors say he wants to please Azerbaijan or neutralize a key source of opposition to his unilateral concessions to Armenia’s arch-foe.
Pashinian said until December that Garegin and other top clerics at odds with him must go because they had secret sex affairs in breach of their vows of celibacy. He has given different reasons for his campaign since then, accusing them of spying for a foreign country, presumably Russia. He has not offered any proof of the allegation publicly dismissed by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on January 20.
The premier appeared to have again changed the stated reason for his campaign in response to Thursday’s statement by the eight prominent Diaspora Armenians based in the U.S. and Europe. The signatories of the statement included four wealthy businessmen and philanthropists.
Another Diaspora benefactor, Russian-Armenian billionaire Samvel Karapetian, was arrested in June right after condemning Pashinian’s drive to oust Garegin and pledging to defend the church “in our way.” Following his arrest Karapetian set up an opposition group which is expected to be one of the main contenders in Armenia’s upcoming parliamentary elections.