A bishop in Armenia's Apostolic Church and 12 clergymen have been arrested as part of a widening rift between church leaders and Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's government. The arrests are the latest in a string of detentions targeting clergy critical of the administration.

Bishop Mkrtich Proshyan of the Diocese of Aragatsotn was charged with coercing citizens to participate in public gatherings, obstructing electoral rights and misusing his office to commit large-scale theft, Armenia's Investigative Committee claimed this week, according to The Associated Press.

Authorities began investigating Proshyan in September, after a fellow clergyman accused church officials of pressuring members to attend anti-government demonstrations in 2021 and alleged corruption in Proshyan's diocese. Twelve other clergymen were detained from the same diocese, though their current status is unclear.

The Armenian Apostolic Church denounced the arrests, calling them part of a "systematic campaign" to interfere with its operations. "There is obvious malicious intent to hinder the normal activities of the church," it said in a post on social media.

Leaders with the Armenian Apostolic Church, which dates back nearly two millennia,  have largely opposed Pashinyan, a former journalist who rose to power in 2018 after a wave of pro-democracy protests. The prime minister has sought to reduce Russian influence and improve relations with Turkey. Some also credit him with helping open Armenia to Western influence.

However, the charges against Proshyan follow a series of arrests of Apostolic Church figures and opposition leaders in recent months, including the high-profile sentencing of Archbishop Mikael Ajapahyan in September.

He was convicted of calling for the overthrow of the government and sentenced to two years in prison, the AP reported earlier.

Ajapahyan's lawyer, Ara Zohrabyan, was quoted as saying that his client was prosecuted for expressing an opinion and called the verdict politically motivated. The church also condemned the ruling, calling it "one of the clear manifestations of the authorities' anti-church campaign."

The charge stems from an interview he gave over a year ago, in which he was quoted as saying there is a "need for a coup," according to the Armenian outlet CivilNet. 

The outlet notes that at the time, the Prosecutor General's Office reviewed the same statements and found they didn't merit prosecution.

Ajapahyan's arrest came weeks after security forces attempted to detain him at the church headquarters, prompting a confrontation with clergy and supporters. He appeared before the Investigative Committee after being summoned by Armenia's National Security Service and was placed in pretrial detention by a Yerevan court the next day.

Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, another vocal critic of Pashinyan and leader of the Sacred Struggle opposition movement, was arrested earlier this year on charges of plotting to overthrow the government. His legal team dismissed the allegations as fabricated.

Pashinyan has repeatedly accused Catholicos Karekin II, the head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, of violating his celibacy vow and called for his resignation. Proshyan is Karekin II's nephew.

Church leaders, including those associated with Sacred Struggle, were prominent in organizing mass demonstrations in April 2024 after Armenia agreed to hand over several border villages to Azerbaijan as part of a plan to normalize relations. The movement initially focused on territorial concessions but expanded to include broader grievances against Pashinyan's rule.

Russian-Armenian billionaire Samvel Karapetyan, another outspoken critic of Pashinyan, was also arrested in June for allegedly advocating the government's removal, which he denied.

On Thursday, Pashinyan received a visit from Archbishop Shahan Sarkissian on behalf of the Catholicos Aram I of the Lebanon-headquartered Armenian Catholicosate of the Great House of Cilicia, a move seen as an attempt to ease tension between the Armenian Apostolic Church's Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin and Pashinyan's government. According to a press release from Pashinyan's office, the prime minister was gifted with a book published on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the enthronement of Aram I.

The deepening political divide comes as Armenia and Azerbaijan, a predominantly Muslim country led by President Ilham Aliyev, whose family has held power for decades, continue efforts to reconcile after decades of conflict. The two countries have disputed control of the Nagorno-Karabakh region since the early 1990s, following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The central point of contention is the church's opposition to Pashinyan's territorial concessions to Azerbaijan, specifically the handover of several Armenian border villages and the normalization of relations with Azerbaijan following the 2023 Nagorno-Karabakh offensive.

Many clergymen, including those affiliated with the Sacred Struggle opposition movement, have publicly resisted the handover, viewing it as a betrayal of Armenia's national and religious identity. The church has also been critical of Pashinyan's leadership and his attempts to consolidate power, especially through actions perceived as undermining traditional institutions like the Apostolic Church. Tensions escalated further with Pashinyan's calls for the resignation of Catholicos Karekin II.

Armenia, widely regarded as the first nation to adopt Christianity as a state religion in 301 A.D., lies at a strategic and often volatile crossroads between Europe and Asia.

On Sept. 19, 2023, Azerbaijan launched a swift military offensive to take full control of Nagorno-Karabakh, which it described as an "anti-terrorist operation." The assault followed a 10-month blockade that restricted access to food and medicine, and led to the forced displacement of the region's estimated 120,000 ethnic Armenian inhabitants. Azerbaijan formally declared the dissolution of the ethnic Armenian enclave on Jan. 1, effectively ending its self-governance and bringing it fully under Baku's authority.

Human rights groups have accused Azerbaijan of using the offensive to erase Armenian Christian cultural presence from the region. The European Centre for Law & Justice documented the targeted destruction of churches, religious artifacts, and monuments, calling the campaign a "cultural genocide." The group warned of ongoing efforts to falsify historical records and eliminate Armenian heritage from the region, urging international institutions to take action.

In August, Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders met at a White House summit where their foreign ministers initiated a draft peace treaty to end decades of hostilities, though it has not yet been ratified.

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