Amidst the escalating rift between the Armenian Apostolic Church and the government, Armenian authorities have arrested a fourth high-ranking clergyman — Archbishop Arshak Khachatryan. He is accused of arranging the planting of drugs in the backpack of a demonstrator at a 2018 protest against Catholicos Karekin II.
On Friday, Khachatryan was remanded to two months of pre-trial detention.
He had been detained the day prior by the Armenian National Security Service (NSS) when leaving the building of the Investigative Committee, where he had been invited for questioning regarding the leaked video allegedly picturing him in an intimate scene.
Khachatryan’s lawyer Arsen Babayan has suggested that the interrogation served as a pretext for the arrest, arguing that there was no real purpose for an additional round of questioning, and describing the questions asked as ‘absurd and meaningless’.
The criminal case, according to the Investigative Committee, is under the illegal sale of narcotics by a group acting in prior agreement, in a public place.
‘We have never heard anything more absurd’, Babayan said in a Facebook live.
He noted, however, a contradiction between the attributed actions and the charges. Khachatryan is accused of arranging the planting of drugs in a protester’s backpack with the help of one of his subordinates, which aimed to discredit the participant. Babayan points out that the criminal case, however, refers to the ‘sale’ of drugs, not the attributed attempt to discredit the demonstrator by planting drugs on them.
In turn, Babayan accused the authorities of attempting to discredit Khachatryan by bringing these charges against him for political reasons. He also pointed at the chronology of the incident, which took place in 2018.
Back then, Babayan said, ‘some people’ expressed suspicion during the investigation that the drugs found in the backpack could have been organised by Khachatryan.
Following this, Babayan said that the ‘latest action’ in the case occurred in July 2025, without providing further details. On 4 December, an investigative group was formed and launched a criminal prosecution against Khachatryan, which was followed by his arrest.
‘This chronology itself is evidence of when the political order was given. When did the political authorities order that the political persecution be carried out against Archbishop Arshak, because of his views and his statements,’ Babayan said.
He placed Khachatryan’s detention in the broader context of the government’s action against the Church, the latest round of which resumed in late May, with authorities accusing Karekin II of fathering a child, hence breaking his celibacy vow and rendering him ineligible for his role as head of the Church.
The Church ‘firmly condemn[ed]’ the arrest on Friday, calling the charges ‘fabricated and baseless’ and demanded ‘immediate cessation’ persecution of Khachatryan and of the other imprisoned clergy.
‘This action is a manifestation of the repressions recently unleashed against the Church and a continuation of the politically motivated persecution of the clergy’, the statement read.
Earlier this week, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan directly accused Karekin II of being a foreign agent, and ‘obey[ing] a senior lieutenant of a foreign special service’.
In late November, 10 high-ranking priests issued a statement expressing their expectation that Karekin II would ‘voluntarily go on leave’.
Arshaluys Barseghyan
The statement came shortly after their unprecedented meeting with Pashinyan, which took place as tensions escalated over a contentious statement circulated by pro-government media, accusing Karekin II of attempting to cover up the scandal regarding an intimate leaked video allegedly featuring Archbishop Khachatryan.
On Thursday, 27 high-ranking clergy expressed their ‘unconditional loyalty’ to Karekin II. The statement further considered ‘any attempt to resolve intra-church issues through political intervention unacceptable and dangerous’.
