Jailed archbishop appeals to Vance as rights group warns of pressure on Armenian church

By Lia Avagyan

Imprisoned Armenian archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan has appealed to U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance and participants of an international religious freedom summit, describing his detention as politically motivated and linked to what he says is a broader campaign against the Armenian Apostolic Church.

Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, who is being held at Yerevan’s Kentron prison, sent separate written letters to Vance and to the International Religious Freedom (IRF) Summit, which opened this week in Washington, CSI representatives said at a press conference in Yerevan on Tuesday.

In his letter to the U.S. vice president, dated Feb. 2, Galstanyan wrote that he was addressing Vance “from Yerevan Kentron Prison in Armenia, as a political prisoner of the regime of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan,” accusing the authorities of falsifying evidence and imprisoning him for speaking “uncomfortable truth to power.”

“I am incarcerated today for a simple reason. My offense is to speak an unwelcome truth to power, in the non-violent spirit of Martin Luther King Jr.,” Galstanyan wrote.

Galstanyan argued that his arrest was part of a wider effort to exert state control over the Armenian Apostolic Church, warning that the authorities were seeking to remove Catholicos Karekin II in violation of constitutional and international religious freedom norms.

“Prime Minister Pashinyan has imprisoned us as part of his campaign to
assert state power over the Armenian Apostolic Church. Violating the constitution and all principles of religious freedom, he is demanding that the Catholicos, the head of the worldwide Armenian church, be replaced by someone under his influence,” the letter said.

A parallel appeal, addressed to participants of the IRF Summit, echoed those claims and urged international actors to intervene. Galstanyan asked the summit to press Vance, ahead of an expected regional visit, to make clear that the United States “will not accept the continued persecution of the Armenian Apostolic Church” and to call for the release of imprisoned clergy and supporters.

CSI President John Eibner said the organization’s delegation had visited Armenia to assess what he described as a deepening crisis between the government and the church. He confirmed that Galstanyan’s letters were written from detention and said the archbishop remained “confident that truth and justice will prevail.”

Eibner also linked Galstanyan’s detention to recent legal actions against other senior clerics, including criminal cases and travel bans imposed days before a planned Armenian Apostolic Church bishops’ assembly in Austria later this month.

“These steps are clearly aimed at making it impossible for the bishops’ assembly in Austria to take place,” Eibner said, referring to measures announced by Armenian authorities over the weekend.

See: Armenian authorities impose travel ban on bishops ahead of Austria meeting

The Austria meeting had been scheduled outside Armenia after church leaders concluded it was no longer safe to hold a full episcopal gathering inside the country.

CSI’s director for public advocacy, Joel Veldkamp, issued a video message from the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin following a meeting with Catholicos Karekin II, sharply criticizing the Armenian government’s actions.

“Right now, the most alarming and visible evidence of that threat is that the Armenian government itself is persecuting the Armenian Apostolic Church, the 1,700-year-old national church of the Armenian people,” Veldkamp said.

“There are four bishops in jail, all on trumped-up or fabricated charges. There are also about two dozen other people in jail, including supporters of the church, church workers, protesters who got in the way of the arrests of these clergymen, and even a relative of the clergyman,” he added.

Veldkamp said the situation had worsened in recent days, citing the government’s decision to abolish the church’s role in military chaplaincy and the imposition of travel bans on six bishops just two weeks before the planned Austria assembly.

“The prime minister of Armenia seems intent on removing the Catholicos from his office in violation of the Armenian constitution, in violation of all international religious freedom norms,” Veldkamp said, warning that church leaders were becoming increasingly isolated internationally.

“There’s been very little words of support from the international religious freedom community still. Far less from Western governments and governments that claim to be interested in international religious freedom,” he said.

Armenian authorities have repeatedly rejected claims that they are targeting the church as an institution, saying criminal cases are based on legal considerations rather than religious affiliation. Critics, however, argue that the timing and scope of the measures point to an unprecedented level of state interference in church affairs.

“All is not as advertised, all is not well,” Veldkamp said. “One of the last bastions of Armenian Christian identity is under an existential threat.”