Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, a leader in protests against the PM, is accused of a plot to overthrow the government.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan says security officials have thwarted a coup plot involving a leading cleric from Armenia’s national church.
The arrest of Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, leader of the opposition movement Holy Struggle, on Wednesday marks a sharp escalation in Pashinyan’s standoff with the leadership of the powerful Apostolic Church.
The church’s leader, Catholicos Garegin II, has called for Pashinyan’s resignation after Armenia lost a war to Azerbaijan in 2020, while Galstanyan, the primate of the Diocese of Tavush, led mass protests last year, aiming to unseat the prime minister, channelling widespread public anger over military defeats and territorial concessions to Azerbaijan.
“Law enforcement officers prevented a large and sinister plan by the ‘criminal-oligarchic clergy’ to destabilize the Republic of Armenia and seize power,” Pashinyan wrote on Facebook on Wednesday, sharing a statement by Armenia’s Investigative Committee.
The committee said it had filed criminal charges against Galstanyan and 15 others, who they said had “acquired the means and tools necessary to commit a terrorist attack and seize power”.
A total of 14 people had been arrested, investigators said, without naming them.
The committee’s statement claimed that Galstanyan — who has previously expressed his desire to replace Pashinyan as prime minister, although he is unable to hold office due to being a dual Armenian-Canadian citizen — sought to overthrow the government with the help of his supporters.
It said the group had recruited about 1,000 people, mainly former soldiers and police officers, and divided them into strike groups, assigning each a task to destabilise the country, by blocking roads, inciting violence or blocking the internet.
It claimed that the group had acquired weapons, explosives, and other dangerous materials in preparation for the plot.
It said searches were under way at the homes of Galstanyan and about 30 of his associates.
The committee also published audio recordings purporting to reveal Galstanyan and others discussing plans for the alleged coup plot.
‘We are coming’
News.am, an Armenian news website, published footage of Galstanyan being taken from his house into a car by masked police officers, and driven away.
“Evil, listen carefully – whatever you do, you have very little time left. Hold on, we are coming,” he said, in an apparent reference to Pashinyan, as a crowd outside shouted “Nikol is a traitor”, the AFP news agency reported.
A lawmaker close to Galstanyan, Garnik Danielyan, said the raids were “actions of a dictatorial regime” and said the accusations against the archbishop were fabricated, AFP reported.
Wednesday’s developments follow the arrest of another prominent government opponent earlier this month, when Russian-Armenian real estate billionaire Samvel Karapetyan was detained on accusations of making public calls to usurp power, the Reuters news agency reported.
Divided nation
Armenia’s humiliating military defeat by Azerbaijan, resulting in the 2023 loss of Nagorno-Karabakh, a separatist enclave in Azerbaijan, has left bitter divisions in Armenia, notably between Pashinyan and the Apostolic Church.
Earlier this month, Pashinyan unsuccessfully attempted to oust Garegin II as the head of the church, calling on the faithful to elect a new spiritual leader to “liberate” the church, AFP reported.
Russia, a treaty ally of Armenia, said the alleged coup plot was an internal matter for Yerevan, but had an interest in calm and order being maintained, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
