Archive · 5 Dec 2025
Armenian Archbishop Arrested on Drug Charges
An important leader in the Armenian Church, Archbishop Arshak Khachatryan, was arrested and put in jail for two months.
He is accused of putting drugs on people who were protesting in 2018.
The Church says this arrest is not fair and is because of politics.
There have been other church leaders arrested too, and the Church and the government are not getting along.
The government is trying to make peace with another country, Azerbaijan, and some church leaders are not happy about it.
The Church says the arrests are not fair, and some people want the Church's leader to step down.
Archbishop Arshak Khachatryan was arrested and placed in pre-trial detention for two months on charges of planting drugs on protesters in 2018.
The Armenian Church condemned the arrest as politically motivated and called for his release.
Several other prominent clerics have been arrested this year on charges of attempting to incite a violent coup against Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
The government and the Church have been in conflict over peace negotiations with Azerbaijan and territorial concessions.
The Church has rejected the prosecutions of the clerics as politically motivated, and some high-ranking bishops have demanded the resignation of the Church's supreme head, Catholicos Karekin II.
- Who
- Archbishop Arshak Khachatryan, a senior figure in the Armenian Church
- What
- Arrested on charges of planting drugs on protesters in 2018
- When
- December 5, 2024 (pre-trial detention for two months)
- Where
- Armenia
- Why
- Amid a widening church-state rift and tensions over peace negotiations with Azerbaijan
- Arrested Archbishop
- Arshak Khachatryan
- Charges
- Planting drugs on protesters in 2018
- Detention Duration
- Two months (pre-trial)
- Church's Response
- Condemned as politically motivated
- Other Arrested Clerics
- Mikael Ajapahyan, Bagrat Galstanyan
- Government-Clergy Conflict
- Ongoing tensions over peace negotiations and political stance
- Church's Stance on Prosecutions
- Rejected as politically motivated
- Upcoming Election
- June 2024