YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) — Armenia’s security services arrested one of the country’s top religious leaders on terrorism charges Wednesday and accused him of plotting to overthrow the government, the second arrest in a week of a prominent political opponent.
Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, a major figure in the influential Apostolic Church, was arrested by Armenia’s Investigative Committee, which accused him of planning to carry out bombings and arson attacks to disrupt power supplies and stage accidents on major roads to paralyze traffic. His lawyer described the charges as “fiction.”
Galstanyan leads the Sacred Struggle opposition movement and has demanded the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who was the focus of protests last year by tens of thousands of demonstrators after Armenia agreed to hand over control of several border villages to bitter rival Azerbaijan and to normalize relations between the neighbors.
Sacred Struggle also described the accusations as false and accused the government of repressing political rights.
Galstanyan leads the Tavush Diocese in northeastern Armenia and spearheaded a movement that opposed the handover of the villages in the country, which was once part of the Soviet Union. Although the territorial concession was the movement’s core issue, it has expanded to a wide array of complaints about Pashinyan, who came to power in 2018.
The decision to turn over the villages followed a lightning military campaign in September 2023, in which Azerbaijan’s military forced ethnic Armenian separatists in the Karabakh region to capitulate.
Pashinyan wrote on social media that the security services had foiled a plot by “the criminal oligarch clergy to destabilize Armenia and take power.”
Officials said 13 others also were detained amid raids by police on the homes of dozens of opposition activists. The Investigative Committee said it carried out over 90 searches and recovered evidence that included firearms and ammunition.
In addition to disputing the charges, Galstanyan’s lawyer, Sergei Harutyunyan, said police searched the cleric’s residence for six hours but found only smoke bombs that are commonly used at protests in Armenia.
“They spent time studying every room, every closet, every letter; they recorded everything,” Harutyunyan said.
Attempts to impeach Pashinyan were unsuccessful, but the relationship between him and the Apostolic Church has deteriorated.
On June 8, Pashinyan called for church leader Catholicos Karekin II to resign after accusing him of fathering a child despite a vow of celibacy. The church released a statement at the time accusing Pashinyan of undermining Armenia’s “spiritual unity” but did not address the claim about the child.
Pashinyan’s claim sparked fresh anger among the church’s followers, including Russian-Armenian billionaire Samvel Karapetyan, who appeared in a video saying that the religious institution was under attack.
Karapetyan, 59, was detained June 18, days after the clip was posted online, and accused of calling for seizing power in the country. Pashinyan later said the billionaire’s energy company, Electricity Networks of Armenia, would be nationalized.
