Move comes after Church’s biggest benefactor announces election bid against Prime Minister from house arrest

Silence of the West on persecution of Christians in Armenia slammed as 'shameful'

The leader of the church of the oldest Christian nation in the world has been indicted and banned from leaving the country.

Catholicos Karekin II of Armenia’s Apostolic Church has been charged with obstructing the enforcement of a judicial act and prevented from attending a major Church convocation in Austria this week.

This follows the Church’s decision to hold its next Synod outside of Armenia due to mounting concerns about government interference.

The Synod, convened to discuss “recent developments around the Church”, was postponed due to “pressure on the clergy and political issues inside Armenia”. The decision to hold a big church council outside of Armenia is a major step and reflects the deteriorating state of religious freedom in the country.

The meeting will be going ahead in Saint Pölten, near Vienna, because bishops fear detention and political interference if they held the event in Armenia. Due to his indictment, the Catholicos will now have to attend via Zoom.

Armenia’s Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinyan, has spent months publicly denigrating and attacking Karekin II, the Catholicos. The Armenian state has been rounding up clergy and the church’s high-profile supporters, as well as confiscating assets. Many of Armenia’s bishops have been arrested by the authorities.

Pashinyan has also said that he intends to seize control of Armenia’s largest religious organisation, something that violates Article 17 of the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia.

In a statement Nikol Pashinyan, the Armenian Prime Minister, said that the government will take over the Armenian Holy Apostolic Church and replace it with a “real, pure, and state-centred Church” that would not be allowed to oppose the state interest.

The Church’s highest profile supporter, philanthropist Samvel Karapetyan, has been detained due to his support for the Church’s independence. However, this has not stopped Mr Karapetyan from announcing his decision to fight Pashinyan for the premiership at the next election.

Through a novel use of AI, which delivered his speech, Mr Karapetyan said:

“By arresting me and keeping me in detention, a tiny clique believed they could silence and isolate not only me, but the voice of Armenia, the voice of our people, the voice of our citizens - the voice of all of you.”

Robert Amsterdam, whose law firm Amsterdam & Partners represents Mr Karapetyan, said:

“Pashinyan defines the term awkward autocrat in attempting to change Armenian and European law to suit his paranoid insecurity.

“He is attempting to threaten the legitimacy of the Armenian Apostolic Church. An Apostolic Church is based on leadership which forms a continuous line from the early Apostles.

“Only the Bolsheviks mirrored his behaviour. The silence of Europe and the West is shameful and the fact that Armenia holds Christian prisoners as well as those in Baku is an embarrassment and a stain on this great country.

“Now is the moment for the West and the Armenian people to defend the values of freedom of religion and conscience.”

Amsterdam & Partners LLP is an international law firm based in London and Washington, DC, specialising in political advocacy and human rights. For more information, please visit www.amsterdamandpartners.com.

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