SixMore — Catholicos of All Armenians Karekin II and bishops loyal to him hold a Christmas Eve Candlelight Mass at the Echmiadzin cathedral of the Armenian Apostolic Church, January 5, 2026

Armenia & Karabakh church church-state relations Human Rights

Six More Armenian Bishops Prosecuted

February 3, 2026

by

The Armenian Mirror-Spectator

409

By Susan Badalian

YEREVAN (Azatutyun) — Armenian law-enforcement authorities have indicted six more bishops of the Armenian Apostolic Church, raising to ten the total number of senior clergymen prosecuted amid Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s efforts to depose Catholicos Karekin II.

Unlike three other archbishops and a bishop jailed last year, the six members of the church’s Supreme Spiritual Council were not arrested after being summoned to the Investigative Committee on Saturday, January 31. The law-enforcement agency instead banned them from leaving Armenia pending investigation.

They will therefore not be able to attend an emergency conference of the church’s top clergy in Austria. Their lawyers and the church’s Mother See in Echmiadzin believe the accusations leveled against them are aimed at scuttling the conference scheduled for February 16-19.

The accusations stem from Karekin’s January 27 decision to defrock another bishop, who is involved in Pashinyan’s controversial campaign to oust the supreme head of the church. The bishop, Gevorg Saroyan, was dismissed earlier in January as head of the church’s Masyatsotn Diocese encompassing parts of Armenia’s southern Ararat province.

With Pashinyan’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.

Catholicos of All Armenians Karekin II chairs a meeting of the Supreme Spiritual Council of the Armenian Apostolic Church, January 14, 2026

The Investigative Committee opened the criminal case following Saroyan’s defrocking recommended by the Supreme Spiritual Council. It charged the six bishops sitting on the council as well as another priest with obstructing the execution of a judicial act. They all denied any wrongdoing after leaving a committee building in Yerevan.

“I would not have gone to court because we had made a vow of unconditional obedience to the Patriarch of All Armenians and must keep the vow of obedience,” Bishop Makar Hakobyan told journalists.

In a statement issued later on Saturday, the Mother See strongly condemned “yet another interference by the authorities in the internal affairs of the Church.” It said the accusations and the travel ban are aimed at “disrupting” the upcoming conference of the bishops convened by Karekin.

The gathering was originally scheduled to take place in Echmiadzin from December 10-12. Karekin postponed it because of what his office described as “repressions against clergy.” The Mother See said afterwards that it will be held abroad for the same reason.

Critics say Pashinyan wants to prevent the meeting because it would almost certainly demonstrate that the Catholicos continues to enjoy the top clergy’s backing despite a recent revolt by ten archbishops and bishops loyal to the Armenian premier. Saroyan is one of those clergymen.

Karekin’s supporters fear that he too may eventually be arrested and/or indicted. The Investigative Committee’s latest moves increased the likelihood of such a scenario. The defrocking order was issued by the Catholicos, not the advisory council whose ecclesiastic members are now also prosecuted.

The Armenian Mirror-Spectator

Topics: church, church-state relations, Human Rights

People: Catholicos Karekin II, Gevorg Saroyan, Nikol Pashinyan

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The Mother See and legal experts maintain that Armenian courts have no jurisdiction over the Catholicos’ unlimited authority to replace diocese heads. They argue that Armenian priests serve based on their vows to obey the church’s centuries-old canonical rules, rather than employment contracts. They say the criminal case opened after the pro-government bishop’s defrocking constitutes another blatant violation of the Armenian constitution which guarantees the ancient church’s separation from the state.

Pashinyan again denied on Thursday, January 29, abusing his powers in his drive to oust Karekin. He repeated his demands for the latter’s resignation.

Pashinyan began his campaign in late May 2025 right after Karekin 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. His detractors say he wants to please Azerbaijan or neutralize a key source of opposition to his unilateral concessions to Armenia’s arch-foe.

Pashinyan said until December that Karekin and other top clerics at odds with him must go because they had secret sexual relationships in breach of their vows of celibacy. He has given a different reason for his campaign since then, effectively 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.

In July, Pashinyan urged supporters to gear up for a rally in Echmiadzin designed to “free” the seat of the Catholicos. Armenian opposition leaders responded by telling their own supporters to be ready to gather there to defend Karekin.

Some of the pro-government bishops held a gathering outside the Echmiadzin cathedral on December 18. But its participants were greatly outnumbered by thousands of other people who rallied there in support of Karekin.

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