An Armenian court has sentenced Archbishop Mikael Ajapahyan to two years in prison after finding him guilty of inciting a coup, deepening tensions between the country’s government and the Armenian Apostolic Church (AAC). The cleric rejected the verdict, calling the accusations politically driven.

Relations between Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s administration and the influential national church have grown increasingly strained in recent months. The rift widened as opposition groups,  backed by several senior church figures, accused Pashinyan of betraying Armenia’s interests by agreeing to transfer several border villages to Azerbaijan. The two neighbors have long been locked in disputes over territory.

Pashinyan, however, defended the controversial handover as part of efforts to end decades of war between the two former Soviet republics, a move that triggered widespread protests across the country. 

Court ruling and charges

The Yerevan court issued its ruling on Friday, nearly four months after Ajapahyan’s arrest in late June. Prosecutors had sought a two-and-a-half-year sentence, while his defense team maintained that the archbishop was innocent of any wrongdoing.

According to court documents, Ajapahyan allegedly called for the government’s overthrow during two separate media interviews, one in February 2024 and another in June 2025.

Following his arrest, Ajapahyan denounced the case as unjust, warning that the “Lord will not forgive the pathetic minions who know very well what they do.”

Broader context and regional reaction

The mounting confrontation between the state and the church has drawn concern from the Armenian Apostolic hierarchy. In August, Catholicos Karekin II, the Supreme Patriarch of All Armenians, decried what he described as an “illegal campaign against the Armenian Apostolic Holy Church and its clergy by the ruling political force,” according to a church statement.

The archbishop’s case is not isolated. In June, authorities also detained another prominent cleric, Bishop Bagrat Galstanyan, on charges of terrorism and attempting a coup.

The escalating dispute has drawn international attention. That same month, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov described the church-government standoff as “an internal matter” for Armenia. He added that many within the large Armenian diaspora in Russia were “watching these events with pain” and did not “accept how this is happening.”

The Armenian Apostolic Church continues to wield considerable influence in the country’s cultural and political life. Recognized as the spiritual foundation of Armenia, widely known as the first nation to adopt Christianity as a state religion in the 4th century, the Church occupies a unique position under the constitution.