A Yerevan court allowed them early on Thursday to hold Bishop Mkrtich Proshian, the primate of the church diocese in Armenia’s central Aragatsotn province, and a local parish priest in pre-trial detention. The other clerics were released without charge.
The Investigative Committee claims that Proshian, who is a nephew of Garegin, forced his subordinates to attend opposition rallies held in the run-up to 2021 parliamentary elections and interfered with their “electoral rights.” He denies the accusations.
One of Proshian’s lawyers, Ara Zohrabian, said the investigators failed to come up with any evidence of the alleged coercion. He also shrugged off their claim that the bishop told diocese priests to “vote for anyone but Nikol Pashinian.”
“Even if such a thing was said, it’s called [pre-election] propaganda, it’s not a crime,” Zohrabian told reporters.
The other arrested cleric, Father Garegin Arsenian, was charged with “assisting” Proshian in his alleged crimes. He too denies any wrongdoing.
Also indicted was a layman working as a diocesan accountant. He is accused of embezzlement. Details of the accusation were not made public.
The case stems from another Aragatsotn priest’s allegations. The dissident priest, Farther Aram Asatrian, has made in recent weeks statements widely construed as a show of effective support for Pashinian’s campaign against Garegin.
The Hraparak newspaper reported that Asatrian was questioned by the investigators. The interrogation apparently took place after the court approved the arrest warrant for his immediate superior.
The Armenian Church’s Mother See has condemned the “illegal” crackdown as “another manifestation of the systematic anti-church campaign instigated by the authorities.” Armenian opposition leaders have likewise claimed that the latest arrests were ordered by Pashinian as part of that campaign.
Pashinian denied that on Thursday. He also dismissed opposition claims that he declared war on the church at the behest of Azerbaijan, whose top Shia Muslim cleric has repeatedly condemned its top clergy in recent months.
Pashinian began attacking the clergy in late May just as 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.
Pashinian threatened to forcibly remove the Catholicos from his Echmiadzin headquarters on June 26 the day after Archbishop Bagrat Galstanian and 15 of his supporters were arrested on coup charges denied by them. Another archbishop very critical of Pashinian, Mikael Ajapahian, was arrested on June 27 for allegedly calling for a violent regime change. Ajapahian was sentenced to two years in prison on October 3 in a trial strongly condemned by the church and the Armenian opposition.