Mikael Ajapahyan has been found guilty of inciting a coup after church leaders opposed a government decision to cede territory to Azerbaijan<\/p>\n
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.
\nTensions 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\u2019s 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.
\nOn Friday, a court in Yerevan handed down the sentence to Ajapahyan, who has been in custody since his arrest in late June.
\nThe prosecution had sought a sentence of two and a half years for the archbishop, while his defense had insisted on his innocence.
\nAccording 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.<\/p>\n
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Commenting on the case against him following his arrest, Ajapahyan warned that the \u201cLord will not forgive the pathetic minions who know very well what they do.\u201d\u00a0
\nIn August, Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians, expressed concern over the \u201cillegal campaign against the Armenian Apostolic Holy Church and its clergy by the ruling political force,\u201d according to a statement published by the church.
\nIn June, the Armenian authorities arrested another high-profile cleric, Bishop Bagrat Galstanyan, on charges of terrorism and preparing a coup.
\nThat same month, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov characterized the rift between the Armenian government and the church as an \u201cinternal matter\u201d for Armenia. He added, however, that many people in the large Armenian diaspora in Russia were \u201cwatching these events with pain\u201d and did not \u201caccept how this is happening.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mikael Ajapahyan has been found guilty of inciting a coup after church leaders opposed a government decision to cede territory to Azerbaijan Armenian Archbishop Mikael Ajapahyan has been found guilty…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19613,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-environment","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t