Garegin was indicted and banned from leaving Armenia one day after Pashinian pledged to prevent an episcopal conference organized by the church. The conference took place in his absence in Austria later in February. Twenty-five bishops and archbishops that attended it voiced support for Garegin and condemned Armenia’s authorities for their “unfounded prosecution” of him and a dozen other senior clergymen.

The accusations levelled against Garegin stem from his January 27 decision to defrock a bishop involved in Pashinian’s controversial campaign to oust the Catholicos. The bishop, Gevorg Saroyan, was dismissed earlier in January as head of the church’s Masyatsotn Diocese encompassing parts of Armenia’s southern Ararat province.

With Pashinian’s encouragement, Saroyan refused to obey the decision and went on to challenge it in court. In an unprecedented injunction, a district court ruled on January 16 that Saroyan must be reinstated pending its verdict on the lawsuit. Lawyers representing the church maintain that Armenian courts have no jurisdiction over internal church affairs.

Saroyan’s defrocking was recommended by the church’s Supreme Spiritual Council. Six bishops sitting on the council were also charged with obstructing the execution of the court order. They will stand trial with Garegin.

The Office of the Prosecutor-General said on Tuesday that it has finally sent the criminal case to a court of first instance in the town of Armavir. The case was swiftly assigned to one of its judges, Hakob Manukian. He has yet to set a date for the start of the unprecedented trial.

Garegin is the first supreme head of the church prosecuted in Armenia’s post-Soviet history. Even Soviet authorities had never formally prosecuted his predecessors.

Garegin will also become the first Catholicos not to address the inaugural session of the Armenian parliament. The recently elected National Assembly is scheduled to meet for the first time on Sunday. Representatives of its pro-government majority confirmed on Wednesday that they will bar Garegin from speaking during the session despite the fact that the parliament’s statutes entitle the Catholicos to delivering such an address.

Pashinian began pressuring Garegin to resign in June 2025 shortly after the Catholicos accused Azerbaijan of committing ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh and illegally occupying Armenian border areas during an international conference in Switzerland. Three Armenian archbishops and one bishop were arrested in the following months on different charges strongly denied by them. They all were moved to house arrest this year.

Pashinian’s Civil Contract party added a pledge to oust Garegin to its campaign manifesto for parliamentary elections held on June 7. Armenian opposition leaders and other government critics denounced the move as yet another violation by Pashinian of a constitutional provision guaranteeing the ancient church’s separation from the state.

Speaking ahead of the elections, Garegin made clear that he will not resign even if he is arrested by the authorities.

“We will not allow a wrong precedent which could be destructive for our church and our nation with its consequences,” he told journalists.

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