Armenian Archbishop Mikael Ajapahyan has been found guilty of inciting a coup and sentenced to two years behind bars amid a growing rift between the country’s national church and the government. The cleric has dismissed the charges against him as politically motivated.
Tensions have escalated in recent months between Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and the opposition, which is supported by prominent figures within the Armenian Apostolic Church (AAC). Critics have accused Pashinyan of betraying Armenia’s national interests after he agreed to hand over several border villages to Azerbaijan, a country with which Armenia has had territorial disputes. Pashinyan, however, has defended the move, which led to protests, saying it aims to resolve the decades-long conflict between the two former Soviet republics.
On Friday, a court in Yerevan handed down the sentence to Ajapahyan, who has been in custody since his arrest in late June.
The prosecution had sought a sentence of two and a half years for the archbishop, while his defense had insisted on his innocence.
According to the indictment, Ajapahyan called for the overthrow of the current Armenian government in two media interviews, dating back to February 2024 and June 2025, respectively.
Commenting on the case against him following his arrest, Ajapahyan warned that the “Lord will not forgive the pathetic minions who know very well what they do.”
In August, Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians, expressed concern over the “illegal campaign against the Armenian Apostolic Holy Church and its clergy by the ruling political force,” according to a statement published by the church.
In June, the Armenian authorities arrested another high-profile cleric, Bishop Bagrat Galstanyan, on charges of terrorism and preparing a coup.
That same month, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov characterized the rift between the Armenian government and the church as an “internal matter” for Armenia. He added, however, that many people in the large Armenian diaspora in Russia were “watching these events with pain” and did not “accept how this is happening.”
