{"id":2045,"date":"2025-08-15T16:23:40","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T16:23:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.youtubexyoutube.com\/?p=2045"},"modified":"2025-08-22T13:57:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T13:57:07","slug":"trial-of-archbishop-underway-in-armenia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.youtubexyoutube.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/15\/trial-of-archbishop-underway-in-armenia\/","title":{"rendered":"Trial of archbishop underway in Armenia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mikael Ajapahyan has dismissed charges against him of inciting a coup as politically motivated<\/strong><\/p>\n

The trial of Armenian Archbishop Mikael Ajapahyan, the first of its kind in the country\u2019s modern history, has begun in the capital Yerevan. The senior cleric is facing charges of inciting a coup, allegations that he has dismissed as politically motivated.<\/p>\n

The case marks an escalation in a protracted confrontation between Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and the opposition, which includes prominent members of the Armenian Apostolic Church. Pashinyan\u2019s opponents have accused him of betraying the country\u2019s national interests after he agreed to hand over several border villages to Azerbaijan, with which Armenia has had territorial disputes. Pashinyan claims the move was aimed at resolving the decades-long conflict between the two former Soviet republics.<\/p>\n

During the first hearing on Friday, the presiding judge refused to grant a request by Ajapahyan\u2019s lawyer to commute the archbishop\u2019s pre-trial detention, instead extending it by another ten days. The cleric has been in custody since his arrest in late June.<\/p>\n

The prosecution is basing its charges against the archbishop on two interviews he gave to the media dating back to February 2024 and June 2025, respectively.<\/p>\n

\n Read more<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n \"FILE
Yerevan court extends Russian-Armenian tycoon\u2019s arrest<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/blockquote>\n

A police raid on the seat of the Armenian Apostolic Church in the city of Vagharshapat in late June led to clashes between clerics, church members, and law enforcement. Ajapahyan eventually turned himself in voluntarily to the authorities.<\/p>\n

Commenting on the case against him later on, he proclaimed that the \u201cLord will not forgive the pathetic minions who know very well what they do.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Earlier this month, Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians, discussed with a group of human rights activists the \u201cillegal campaign against the Armenian Apostolic Holy Church and its clergy by the ruling political force,\u201d<\/em> according to a statement published by the church.<\/p>\n

In late June, the Armenian authorities arrested another high-profile cleric, Bishop Bagrat Galstanyan, on charges of terrorism and preparing a coup.<\/p>\n

In late June, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov described the civil strife in Armenia as its \u201cinternal matter\u201d<\/em> but noted, however, that many people in the large Armenian diaspora in Russia were \u201cwatching these events with pain\u201d<\/em> and did not \u201caccept how this is happening.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mikael Ajapahyan has dismissed charges against him of inciting a coup as politically motivated The trial of Armenian Archbishop Mikael […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2049,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.youtubexyoutube.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2045"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.youtubexyoutube.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.youtubexyoutube.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.youtubexyoutube.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.youtubexyoutube.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2045"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.youtubexyoutube.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2050,"href":"http:\/\/www.youtubexyoutube.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2045\/revisions\/2050"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.youtubexyoutube.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.youtubexyoutube.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.youtubexyoutube.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.youtubexyoutube.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}