Lawyer Ara Zohrabyan has asked the court to terminate the criminal prosecution of Catholicos Karekin II and six senior Armenian Apostolic Church clergymen and dismiss the proceedings against them.
“The state has no right to decide who should be a bishop,” Zohrabyan told the court, arguing that the defrocking of a bishop is an exclusively spiritual and canonical matter that falls outside the authority of secular institutions.
Zohrabyan said the conduct attributed to Karekin II does not constitute a criminal offense and argued that there are therefore no grounds for the prosecution to continue.
Karekin II and the six senior clergymen did not attend Friday’s hearing in Etchmiadzin, according to the Mother See.
The proceedings stem from the case of Arman Saroyan, formerly Bishop Gevorg Saroyan. After the Mother See removed Saroyan as head of the Masyatsotn Diocese and later defrocked him, he challenged the decision in court and obtained an interim order in his favor. Criminal proceedings were subsequently launched against Karekin II and six bishops over allegations that they obstructed enforcement of that order.
The Church’s position is that secular authorities cannot determine who serves as a bishop or override canonical decisions concerning ecclesiastical office.
The case has already become entangled in a jurisdictional dispute and passed through three judges without reaching a substantive trial.
The proceedings come amid Nikol Pashinyan’s continuing campaign against the Armenian Apostolic Church and Karekin II, whose resignation he has repeatedly demanded.
