Bishop Mkrtich Proshyan was arrested on October 15. (Source: Aragatsotn Diocese Facebook page.)
Last week, the Armenian government escalated its campaign against the Armenian Apostolic Church. Security forces raided a diocese and arrested a bishop, twelve priests, and a number of lay employees of the church. Masked security agents also arrested the lawyer of an archbishop who was himself arrested in June.
The arrests add to an expanding list of political prisoners in Armenia. Two archbishops of the Armenian church are already jailed, one of whom was sentenced to two years in prison on October 3. Samvel Karapetyan, a prominent Russian-Armenian businessman, has been in prison since June 18, when he was arrested for defending the church in a television interview.
Raid on a diocese
On October 15, security forces raided the church’s diocese for the western province of Aragatsotn. Bishop Mkrtich Proshyan was arrested, along with twelve of his priests and a number of church employees.
After a court session that began at half past midnight and lasted until 6 am, all the arrested were released except for Bishop Proshyan, a priest named Garegin Arsenyan, and the diocese’s accountant. These three men were indicted on politicized charges related to their opposition activity.
Lawyer arrested in the street
On October 16, a lawyer named Alexandr Kochubayev made a Facebook post condemning the bishop’s arrest and attacking the prosecutors involved in the case. The next day, masked agents from Armenia’s National Security Service seized Kochubayev in the street in front of the courthouse where he had just appeared to defend his client, the detained Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan.
In response to these arrests, a coalition of Armenian human rights NGOs has released a joint statement, condemning “the selective, punitive, disproportionate and unlawful application of criminal justice mechanisms” and warning that the arrests constitute “gross violations of fundamental human rights.”
Why is the Armenian government attacking the church?
The Armenian Apostolic Church dates to Armenia’s national conversion to Christianity in 301 AD. Over 90% of Armenians are affiliated with the church, and Armenia’s constitution recognizes the church’s status as a “national church” with a unique mission to preserve Armenia’s “national identity.”
Two years ago, the dictatorship of Azerbaijan attacked Nagorno Karabakh (or Artsakh), and drove out its entire Armenian Christian population – nearly 120,000 people.
The current fight between the church and the government stems from a dispute over how to respond to this ethnic cleansing. The church publicly supports the right of these Armenians to return to their ancient homeland; Prime Minister Pashinyan has said that the Karabakh question is “closed” and called talk of return “dangerous” to the peace process between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
In May, the head of the church, Catholicos Karekin II, attended a conference organized by the World Council of Churches in Switzerland. There, he called for the safe return of Armenians to their homeland in Nagorno Karabakh.
Shortly afterwards, Pashinyan began publicly attacking the Catholicos and the church, calling for the Catholicos’ replacement with a new leader chosen by the government – a blatant attack on religious freedom.
Archbishops arrested
In June, Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan and Archbishop Mikayel Ajapahyan were both arrested and charged with being part of a plot to overthrow the government.
It has since been revealed that Armenian authorities falsified evidence used to charge Archbishop Galstanyan. On October 3, Archbishop Ajapahyan was sentenced to two years in prison after a hasty trial, on a flimsy charge based on comments he made to the press. Normally, this charge is punished with a fine or community service.
The Regional Center for Democracy and Security in Armenia has said that Ajapahyan should be considered a political prisoner, based on the definition used by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
“Wake up, start shouting”
In a statement on X, CSI’s president, Dr. John Eibner, said that the government’s campaign against the church “harmonizes with Azerbaijan’s propaganda” and is aimed at “undermining the Apostolic Church’s ability to defend Armenia’s Christian tradition.”
“What the Armenian government is doing today,” he said, “is not unlike what the Chinese communist state does today to house church leadership, or what the communist authorities did in Armenia and elsewhere in the now thankfully defunct Soviet Union.”
Eibner called on the international religious freedom movement to “wake up and start shouting” over the persecution of the Armenian church.
