YEREVAN – The Armenian government had planned to bring the Catholicos of All Armenians to trial on Friday 28 August, an unprecedented act in the world’s first Christian nation.
Instead, the lawyer to the Armenian Apostolic Church leadership announced that on Friday he will challenge a government attempt to interfere in the internal governance of the Church.
“The Constitution and laws of Armenia require the state… not to enter the sphere of internal governance and canonical life of the Armenian Apostolic Holy Church,” said lawyer Ara Zohrabyan in a Facebook post.
“Consequently, the state cannot decide whether a specific person… should continue to be considered a bishop or not,” Zohrabyan added.
The preliminary court hearing will take place at 16.30 on Friday 4 September at the courthouse of Vagharshapat, the district in which the seat of the Armenian Church, the Mother See of Holy Etchmiatzin, is located.
The Catholicos and six bishops – all members of the Supreme Spiritual Council, the Church’s top governing body – will not attend but rather be represented by their legal defence.
The case centers around a 10 January decision by the Supreme Spiritual Council to relieve former Bishop Gevorg (now Arman) Saroyan of his position as a diocese leader.
The Council cited “abuse of power” and “instances of coercion and pressure exercised against the clergy of the diocese” – occurring in the context of the government’s escalating campaign to seize control of the church and appoint a puppet Catholicos.
On 15 January, Saroyan filed a lawsuit against the church leadership, demanding his reinstatement as primate of the Diocese of Masyatsotn (also referred to as Masis), located in Armenia’s central Ararat province.
The following day, a state court of first instance granted Saroyan’s request for interim measures, namely that he should be allowed to continue exercising his authority as diocese leader, until a final judicial decision is rendered.
In essence, the state assumed the right to override the church’s internal governance, specifically, who should and should not be a bishop.
Saroyan claimed that the demotion violated his right to spiritual ministry and refused – with the backing of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s administration – to relinquish his post.
On 27 January, the church leadership decreed Saroyan defrocked, citing Saroyan’s breaking of his vows, returning him to lay status and his baptismal name, Arman Saroyan.
‘Spiritual security’
Then, on 14 February, the Prosecutor’s Office brought charges against the Catholicos and six bishops belonging to the Supreme Spiritual Council, barring them from leaving the country ahead of a key Episcopal Assembly that was to be convened in Austria.
The Armenian Centre for Political Rights, a Yerevan-based human rights watchdog, condemned the decision at the time as a violation of not only Armenian law, but Armenia’s international obligations.
The charges and travel ban against the Catholicos and bishops, the ACPR said, “constitute an undisguised attempt to prevent their participation in the Episcopal Assembly of the Armenian Apostolic Church”.
“This prohibition results from a grave violation of the Constitution and of the [European Convention on Human Rights], in particular the State’s obligation not to interfere with the autonomy of religious organizations.”
By consequence, the watchdog said, “the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and association, are infringed”.
International religious freedom advocates, including Christian Solidarity International, Forum 18, and FOREF Europe, have also condemned the Armenian government’s persecution of the church.
Prominent Armenian diaspora organisations, including the Armenian General Benevolent Union, have urged the government to respect the church’s historic role and self-governance.
The government has only dug in, however, making Saroyan a mascot of its campaign to “reform” the church – with the defrocked bishop given prime time on state television as Pashinyan lambasted the Catholicos from the seat of parliament.
Armenia’s ruling party this week unilaterally adopted a five-year plan that sets the removal of the Catholicos as a state goal, along with the formulation of a new government-imposed charter to govern the 1,700-year-old Armenian Apostolic Church.
The policy claims that deposing Catholicos Karekin II, who has used his platform to advocate for the rights of the Armenians and Christian heritage of Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh) following Azerbaijan’s forceful expulsion of its population in 2023, is critical to ensuring “spiritual security” as Yerevan pursues normalisation with Azerbaijan.
The Catholicos’ landmark May 2025 speech calling for the protection of Artsakh’s churches and the right of return of its population at a World Council of Churches gathering in Bern, Switzerland, sparked angry reactions from Azerbaijan’s highest religious authority and is widely regarded as having prompted Pashinyan’s campaign to seize control of the church.
The government’s agenda represents the biggest challenge to the autonomy of Armenia’s national church since the Soviet era, which saw Catholicos Khoren I murdered at the Mother See in 1938.
