By Anush Mkrtchian
YEREVAN (Azatutyun) — An outspoken archbishop was sentenced to two years in prison on Friday, October 3, three months after being arrested amid Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s campaign against the top clergy of the Armenian Apostolic Church.
A court in Yerevan handed down the sentence to Archbishop Mikael Ajapahyan at the end of an unusually quick trial condemned by the church, opposition groups and other critics of the Armenian government as a travesty of justice. It convicted him last week of calling for a violent regime change.
Ajapahyan was taken into custody on June 27, the day after Pashinyan threatened to forcibly remove Catholicos Garegin II from his Echmiadzin headquarters if the supreme head of the church refuses to resign. Security forces met with fierce resistance from hundreds of angry priests and laymen when they raided the Mother See in a failed bid to arrest Ajapahyan there. The latter surrendered to investigators several hours after the unprecedented raid.
The case against the 62-year-old cleric critical of the government is based on a 2024 interview in which he discussed the need for a coup d’etat in the country. The Office of the Prosecutor-General concluded at the time that his remarks do not warrant criminal charges. It now says that he was prosecuted for making a similar statement in June this year.
Ajapahyan, who heads the church diocese in Armenia’s Shirak province, continued to reject the accusation as politically motivated throughout his trial that began on August 15. He remained visibly calm and smiled after the presiding judge, Armine Meliksetian, read out the final verdict in the courtroom packed with his supporters.
