An Armenian court has dismissed two more lawsuits filed by defrocked clergymen against the Armenian Apostolic Church, bringing the number of similar cases dismissed in three days to three.
The Armavir Court of First Instance ruled that the cases brought by Stepan Asatryan, formerly Father Aram, and Aramayis Takhmazyan, formerly Father Tade, fall outside the jurisdiction of civil courts. Both had sought to overturn decisions by Catholicos of All Armenians Karekin II stripping them of their clerical status.
Judges Sima Abovyan and Hovhannes Melkonyan also lifted earlier interim measures requiring the Church to allow Asatryan to continue serving at Hovhannavank Monastery and Takhmazyan at the church in Talin.
The rulings follow a similar decision issued on October 21 in the case of Arman Saroyan, formerly Bishop Gevorg, who had challenged his removal as head of the Diocese of Masyatsotn. The court found that an employment relationship between Saroyan and the Church had not been established and that clerical appointments and dismissals are governed by internal Church regulations.
In all three cases, the courts dismissed the proceedings without ruling on the legality of the Catholicos’s decisions themselves. The rulings were originally scheduled for publication in August but were delayed by approximately two months.
The decisions come amid Nikol Pashinyan’s ongoing confrontation with the Armenian Apostolic Church and its leadership. Pashinyan has publicly supported Asatryan, repeatedly attended services conducted by the defrocked priest at Hovhannavank, and openly rejected the Catholicos’s authority to remove him.
The legal developments also carry implications for a separate criminal case against Karekin II and six senior clergymen, who face charges of allegedly obstructing enforcement of an earlier interim court order in Saroyan’s case.
Although the underlying civil proceedings have now been dismissed, the criminal case remains separate and has not automatically been terminated.
