Deputy Speaker of the Armenian Parliament Ruben Rubinyan wrote on Facebook that in 1998, during the first months of then-President Robert Kocharyan’s tenure, Bishop Asoghik Aristakesyan, head of the Armenian Apostolic Church’s Armavir Diocese, was arrested and detained in a $1 million embezzlement case.
Rubinyan questioned how Archbishop Nersisyan, now known as Catholicos Karekin II, responded at the time: “One might assume he accused Kocharyan of launching an anti-Church campaign, of anti-Christian sentiment, of fabricating charges… right?”
“No,” Rubinyan wrote.
Instead, Nersisyan had issued a cautious and diplomatic statement expressing concern but trust in due legal process, saying the Church would take an internal position only after the court verdict, and would act in accordance with ecclesiastical law depending on guilt or innocence.
Rubinyan added: “Such meekness, politeness, and trust in Kocharyan’s law enforcement!”
He noted that in 1999, “Nersisyan, though not a celibate cleric, was elected Catholicos. In 2001, Bishop Asoghik was acquitted by court, and in 2008, he was defrocked at his own request.”
Rubinyan also pointed out that in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Karekin II called for Kocharyan’s release from pretrial detention, implying that “COVID only threatened Kocharyan among all prisoners in Armenia. The very same Kocharyan who wouldn’t arrest bishops without cause. The national, the holy Kocharyan,” he added ironically.
This commentary comes in the context of the October 15 detention of Bishop Mkrtich Proshyan and 12 clergy members of the Aragatsotn Diocese. Three individuals, including the bishop, were arrested and charged with abuse of official position to obstruct electoral rights and coercing participation in gatherings. Bishop Proshyan is in two-month pretrial detention.
