Garegin struck a defiant note as he addressed hundreds of members and supporters of a new opposition movement who gathered at his Echmiadzin headquarters in a show of support for the supreme head of the church. They prayed with him at the historic Echmiadzin cathedral before holding a candlelight vigil around it.
“Despite the reprehensible anti-church actions of the authorities, our Holy Church remains unshaken and strong -- sustained by the faith and devotion of her people,” Garegin said after the prayer service. “With the same zeal, it continues to fulfill its God-given mission, striving to safeguard the interests of our nation and Homeland.
“We call upon all our faithful children to stand firm, not to lose heart in the face of hardships and trials, but to move forward with apostolic courage, ‘For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.’”
Like other Armenian opposition groups, the In Our Way movement led by jailed billionaire Samvel Karapetian has strongly condemned Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s continuing efforts to depose Garegin. The opposition says that the October 15 arrests and prosecution of two clerics is part of that campaign.
Bishop Mkrtich Proshian, the primate of the church diocese in Armenia’s central Aragatsotn province, and a parish priest were among at least local 13 clergymen rounded up by law-enforcement authorities that day. 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.
The Catholicos condemned on Sunday the “false and fabricated charges” brought against the two men as well as Archbishops Bagrat Galstanian and Mikael Ajapahian, who were arrested on separate charges in June.
“Our love and prayers are with them,” he said. “We believe that with God’s help, justice will prevail and our brothers and sisters unlawfully deprived of their freedom will be released.”
In what is widely seen as a related development, pro-government news websites publicized on Friday purported audio of a 2023 phone conversation between an Echmiadzin-based archbishop and a now defrocked priest who claimed that Garegin told him to attend anti-government rallies along with his relatives. The priest also complained about the Catholicos’s decision to relocate him from Echmiadzin to a parish in the northern city of Vanadzor described by him as too remote.
The church’s Mother See did not deny the authenticity of the recording while accusing the authorities of seeking to discredit the clergy. It also said that the phone call was wiretapped illegally and cannot be used as incriminating evidence. Condemnations also poured in from opposition figures and other critics of Pashinian.
Nevertheless, the Investigative Committee swiftly launched a formal inquiry under the same articles of the Armenian Criminal Code that were used against the arrested Bishop Proshian. As of Monday afternoon, the law-enforcement agency did not name any suspects in the case. Some legal experts critical of the government regard the launch of the inquiry as a prelude to Garegin’s arrest and prosecution.
Following the October 15 arrests, Pashinian 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. The premier 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. In a July 20 appeal, the premier urged supporters to be ready to “free” the Mother See. Opposition leaders warned Pashinian against trying to seize the seat of the Catholicos. They also told their own supporters to be ready to gather at the Mother See in support of Garegin.