YEREVAN — Azerbaijan’s top Islamic cleric, Sheikh-ul-Islam Allahshukur Pashazadeh, met with UN Secretary-General António Guterres on October 10, wherein he allegedly accused the Armenian Apostolic Church of sabotaging peace efforts.
These comments, which were reported by Azerbaijani state media, serve to continue the propagandized rhetoric being parrotted by Azerbaijani outlets, which some Armenian experts see as a coordinated attack by Azerbaijan to delegitimize the Armenian Apostolic Church and Armenia.
The meeting preceded a new wave of arrests launched by Armenian authorities targeting senior clergy — deepening fears that Yerevan may be acting under Baku’s direction.
According to Azerbaijani media, in remarks made during a meeting with UN Secretary-General António Guterres, Pashazadeh claimed that the Armenian Church and diaspora were engaged in “destructive propaganda” and “calls for revanchism and renewed confrontation,” undermining efforts by political leaders to secure peace.
In a meeting with Rabbi Arthur Schneier, an important Jewish religious figure in the U.S., Pashazadeh said, as reported by Azerbaijani state media, that: “While political leaders on both sides take steps toward peace, the Armenian Church calls for revanche and conflict.”
Armenian law enforcement detained at least six priests and conducted searches in the homes of clergy affiliated with the Diocese of Aragatsotn, which is led by Bishop Mkrtich Proshyan, a nephew of Catholicos Karekin II.
According to official information confirmed by clergy and legal representatives, those detained include Father Paren Arakelyan, spiritual leader of Saghmosavank, Father Manuk, Father Hayk, Father Mkrtich, Father Gevond and several employees of the Aragatsotn Diocese.
The Investigative Committee of Armenia confirmed the arrests, stating that the detentions are part of an ongoing criminal investigation launched under the article concerning: “Obstructing or coercing participation in an assembly by abusing official authority or influence, as well as material inducement to participate or not participate in a gathering.” The committee added that “procedural and evidentiary actions are being carried out” as part of the pre-trial proceedings.
According to church sources, Bishop Proshyan was taken in for questioning. His alleged involvement was cited in a televised statement by another priest, Father Aram, who claimed he participated in opposition protests under instructions from Bishop Proshyan. This confession became the basis for a criminal investigation, formally accusing clergy of coercion and interference in peaceful assembly.
These developments come amid an intensifying anti-church campaign by the current Armenian government, led by Prime Minister Pashinyan, who in recent months has openly targeted members of the Armenian Church. Pashinyan has suggested that if Catholicos Karekin II had broken his celibacy vow, he could no longer serve as spiritual leader.
In June, the government arrested Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, leader of the “Sacred Struggle” movement, on charges of attempting a coup d’état. Days later, security forces stormed the grounds of the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin in an attempt to arrest Archbishop Mikael Ajapahyan of Shirak, who later turned himself in and was detained.
Ajapahyan now faces charges including attempting to seize power and public incitement to overthrow the constitutional order and was handed a two-year sentence last week.
Pashinyan, escalating the rhetoric further in July, vowed to personally lead the “liberation” of Etchmiadzin, accusing the Church’s leadership of being a “group of anti-Christian, adulterous, anti-state usurpers.”
The timing of the arrests — falling closely after Pashazadeh’s statements — has deepened suspicions for some that Armenia’s current regime may be yielding to pressure from Azerbaijan, especially in aligning its internal policy with Baku’s long-running campaign to delegitimize the Armenian Church both domestically and abroad.
“Religious leaders always call for peace,” Pashazadeh claimed, while simultaneously accusing the Armenian clergy of spreading “anti-Azerbaijani disinformation and revanchist rhetoric.”
Azerbaijan has long sought to discredit the Armenian Apostolic Church, particularly as tensions persist over cultural heritage sites in Nagorno-Karabakh. As reported by Azerbaijani media, Pashazadeh again asserted that Azerbaijan is “restoring churches alongside mosques,” attempting to portray a balanced approach even as access for Armenian clergy has been severely restricted.
These developments have sparked widespread outrage among political figures, civil society leaders and human rights advocates in Armenia, who warn that the arrests mark a dangerous escalation in the government’s campaign against the Armenian Apostolic Church — and may reflect increasing subservience to Azerbaijan’s geopolitical agenda.
“No foreign occupier in our history has treated the Armenian Church with such contempt,” wrote opposition MP Ishkhan Saghatelyan, Representative of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, Armenia Supreme Council. “Not even the Young Turks or Bolsheviks went this far. Today’s regime is doing what only our enemies dared to imagine.”
MP Gegham Manukyan compared the crackdown to the failed Soviet-era attempts to fragment the Armenian Church through the creation of the so-called “Free Church” movement. “Pashinyan isn’t just inspired by Bolshevik tactics — he’s replicating them,” he said. “The aim is clear: to destroy the Church not just as a spiritual institution, but as a pillar of Armenian identity.”
The reaction from Armenia’s academic and human rights community has been equally sharp. Historian Davit Fidanyan noted the troubling synchronicity between Pashazadeh’s anti-Church rhetoric and Yerevan’s subsequent actions. “We’re witnessing a coordinated campaign, where the Armenian state appears to take its cues directly from Baku,” he wrote. “This is no coincidence. The attacks on clergy resumed almost immediately after Pashazadeh’s public demands.”
Former Human Rights Defender Arman Tatoyan warned that the government is implementing a two-phase strategy: first, a prolonged propaganda effort to delegitimize the Church, followed by targeted legal and physical action. “These arrests are not isolated,” Tatoyan said. “They are part of a pre-planned campaign to weaken the Church’s influence and silence dissent.”
Legal expert Ruben Melikyan went further, calling the detentions a “hostage operation” rather than lawful arrests. “Bishop Proshyan and the other priests weren’t arrested — they were captured,” he wrote. “And once again, the order came from Baku. Pashazadeh gave the signal, and Yerevan executed it.”
Meanwhile, public concern over the future of the Church is growing. The storming of Etchmiadzin in June, and now the coordinated arrest of clergy, have led many to fear that the Armenian government is not only turning its back on national religious institutions but actively facilitating their dismantlement.
Who could have imagined that the Armenian Apostolic Church would be persecuted in an independent Armenia? The church has been persecuted many times throughout its history, with persecutions occurring on and off during centuries of foreign rule, and the persecutors were distinctly not Armenian (Armenian Bolsheviks can be counted to this group, because they were doing the persecutions of the Armenian Apostolic Church and of Armenian nationalists under the orders of their foreign Bolshevik overlords).
That is, until Pashinyan came to power and began to persecute the Armenian Apostolic Church and Armenian nationalists, for opposing and challenging his treachery. Worse, Pashinyan and Azerbaijan seem to be in cahoots in vilifying the Armenian Apostolic Church as “religious fanatics” and as an “obstactle” to the fake “peace treaty” (i.e. appeasement of Azerbaijan). Pashinyan’s attempt to silence and neutralize the Armenian Apostolic Church, is not only to remove the biggest opponent to his authoritarian rule, also to make appeasement of Azerbaijan much easier.
30,000 years ago it was the lion man, animal spirits, etc now its a sky wizard. Give it probably 3,000 years these will disappear too. All those preachers waving their hands in the air are richer then god himself from donations. Grown ass man who believes a guy is watching him do his daily routine amongst like 8 billion people. Grow up man, your not special. Also my god is superior to your god because I was born into it. Religions were needed back in the times but now we have science. Extra ordinary claims require extraordinary evidence (look, their is this book though dont cut it). Majority of Turks are non religious and its just going to keep growing thanks to critical thinking and the availability of information. I hope the same for Armenians youth. 2025 and you have some dude walking around in black warding off spirits with smoke.
You are no friend of Armenia. Despite perspectives on faith, your government committed genocide against Assyrians Armenians and Greeks. Go bother your own people who have ongoing issues with femicide, corruption that stole money from the earthquake fund that led to greater deaths than should have been present in a developed nation, and your culture’s whitewashing of their myriad of atrocities by blaming the victimized groups. Sincerely, from an Arab who recalls the enforced blockade and starvation of 200,000 Lebanese people, because your vicious racist government wanted our lands without our indigenous people.
The Turk looks sinister, the UN Secretary General is, as President Trump so aptly described him, “only capable of writing a strongly worded letter”.
Whatever.
Unremitting hostility to the Turks is the only force that keeps Armenia safe.
Azerbaijan does not negotiation and will not negotiate the Armenian prisoners, the return of the Artsakh Armenians. The opposition, led by oligarchs who notably hail from Karapagh (Kocharyan, Sargsyan, Shahramanian and their cronies), and Russian Armenian oligarchs (Karabetyan, Abrahamyan), and the Church leadership (Karekin II and bishops) know this and they will not make the prisoners, return of the Artsakh Armenians a stumbling block. They have not raised any issue with Turkey from their get go. Once in power, they will resume the current negotiations with Azerbaijan and will even be more accommodating, alleging no choice because of false Pashinyan start. But Kocharyan and Sargsyan and their cronies, Karapetyan and monied Russian Armenians, will retain their immense ill-gotten personal wealth. Etchmiadzin will retain its privileged status, exempt from taxes, claiming moral supremacy, accountable to God only. As for Diaspora Armenians, I am not sure what would have they accomplish that will be advantageous to their communities. It will be up the citizens of Armenia to make the choice in June 2026. And for Diaspora Armenians, to root for your faction in Armenia in their press and social media.
The inability of many Armenians to realise that Azerbaijan is leveraging any return to Arktash where it will be thoroughly Azerified, Alyiev cult etc, with Azeris and their descendants who had to leave Armenian SSR from 1988 is alarming of the insularity and ignorance and lack of context pervading. After all in Armenia there would then be many Azeris who would likely stage provocation and then like Czechslovakia in 1938 the mother country would have to intervene. ..
It seems that you are influenced by one-sided propaganda, and are not aware of the systematic ethnic cleansing conducted by Azerbaijan since its instauration by the Bolsheviks in 1920s: in Nakhichevan, the ill-famed Sumgait and Baku (the city that was founded by Armenians) pogroms in 1990s, Cantsag, Shahouian area, Kedshen, Ardzvashen (an Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan) etc and lately Artsakh, After completing the ethnic cleansing they have been conducting a systematic cultural heritage genocide, just to compensate their cultural emptiness, and satisfy their plundering culture, since they were just barbarian invaders of the region, and claim the absence of any Armenians in their occupied regions. Naturally, their actual wealth from oil money can buy any cheap conscience in the world.
I’m well aware of the Armenians banished from Azerbaijan not merely N-K region, nevertheless Azerbaijan is only making a possible return (where such persons will be indoctrinated in Azeri Alyiev cult) conditional upon the right to return for Azeris who had to leave Soviet Armenia when conflict erupted in 1988 and possibly as far back as 1947 when the Soviet Union deported a number of Azeris from Armenian SSR to Azeri SSR as part of its policy to build Armenia and bungled attempt to regain western Armenia from Turkey which actually helped Turkey into NATO and further sidelined the case of the ottoman deportations and massacres being recognised as a genocide. Pointing out to the wider context is not one sided at all yet all the clamour for right to return here seems completely oblivious to this reality!