The criminal case against His Holiness Karekin II, Catholicos of All Armenians, and six bishops of the Armenian Apostolic Church grew out of a dispute involving Arman Saroyan, formerly Bishop Gevorg Saroyan.
Saroyan entered the courthouse Friday as people outside shouted “Traitor” and “Shame.” His request for a closed hearing, citing threats and what he described as a targeted media campaign, was rejected.
After the Mother See removed Saroyan as head of the Masyatsotn Diocese and later defrocked him, he filed a lawsuit challenging the decision and secured an interim court order in his favor. Pashinyan’s government then launched criminal proceedings against the Catholicos and six bishops, accusing them of obstructing enforcement of that order.
Judge Serzh Rushanyan ruled Friday that prosecutors had failed to establish why the case should be heard by the Armavir Regional Court and ordered it transferred to the Yerevan Criminal Court of First Instance.
The Catholicos’s legal team, however, argues that Armavir is the proper jurisdiction because the Church decisions at the center of the case were made at the Mother See in Etchmiadzin. Lawyer Ruben Melkikyan also challenged the transfer to Yerevan, saying a case can be moved on territorial grounds only when another specific jurisdiction has been established.
Ara Zohrabyan, a member of the Catholicos’s legal team, also raised concerns that three judges with records involving opposition figures or senior clergy could now be assigned the case, from Karen Farkhoyan and Armine Meliksetyan, who handled the cases against Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan and 17 others and Archbishop Mikael Ajapahyan, to Masis Melkonyan, who himself ran in the 2021 elections with the Republic Party.
The proceedings come amid Nikol Pashinyan’s continuing campaign against the Armenian Apostolic Church and the Catholicos, whose resignation he has repeatedly demanded.
