Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan used a speech at the European Parliament on Wednesday to accuse the Armenian Apostolic Church and his political opponents of trying to drag Armenia into another war with Azerbaijan.
Addressing lawmakers in Strasbourg, Pashinyan defended his government’s intensifying crackdown on the church’s senior clergy, which has led to the arrests of three archbishops and one bishop on charges they dismiss as politically motivated. He also rejected claims that the clerics, along with opposition figures and supporters prosecuted last year, are political prisoners.
“The reality is that some clergymen, who have cynically violated all the rules of spiritual morality, thus making themselves vulnerable to foreign special services … have assumed the leadership of the war party in the Republic of Armenia, gathering around them Armenia’s former leaders, some forces associated with them and some Russia-based and pro-Belarusian oligarchs, and are trying to sacrifice Armenia’s independence to the interests of third countries,” Pashinyan said.
“We will not allow a new conflict, a new war, we will not allow the consciousness, peace and independence gained at the cost of thousands of victims to be sacrificed for anti-Christian purposes,” he added in the 25-minute address.
Pashinyan also pointed to Armenia’s parliamentary elections scheduled for June 7, saying the vote should make peace with Azerbaijan “irreversible.”
His remarks came amid growing anxiety within the ruling Civil Contract party over the possibility that three opposition camps led by former President Robert Kocharyan, Russian-Armenian billionaire Samvel Karapetyan, and businessman Gagik Tsarukyan could together secure a majority in the next parliament and form a coalition government. Senior Civil Contract figures have said the authorities “will not allow” such an outcome, fueling opposition fears of vote rigging and other abuses.
Opposition leaders argue that the agreements with Azerbaijan promoted by Pashinyan will not bring genuine peace because they rest on one-sided Armenian concessions to Baku. They say his policy of appeasement will only embolden Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to press for even more.
Pashinyan launched his controversial campaign to remove Catholicos Garegin II shortly after the head of the Armenian Church accused Azerbaijan at an international conference in Switzerland last May of carrying out ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh and illegally occupying Armenian border areas. The four senior clergymen were jailed in the months that followed, though three of them have recently been transferred to house arrest.
Earlier this year, Armenian law-enforcement authorities also indicted Garegin himself, along with six other archbishops and bishops. They were barred from leaving the country to attend an emergency episcopal conference held in Austria last month. The 25 participants in that gathering expressed support for the Catholicos and condemned the government crackdown in a joint statement.
Critics say Pashinyan’s effort to oust Garegin violates Armenia’s constitution and laws guaranteeing the autonomy of the ancient church and the separation of church and state. Two Western religious-rights organizations echoed those concerns earlier in February. One of them, the Vienna-based Forum for Religious Freedom Europe, warned of “grave threats to freedom of religion or belief” in Armenia.
