{"id":18687,"date":"2026-02-12T14:39:51","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T14:39:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=18687"},"modified":"2026-02-12T14:39:51","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T14:39:51","slug":"britain-monitoring-the-situation-with-armenian-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=18687","title":{"rendered":"Britain ‘monitoring the situation’ with Armenian Church"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Etchmiadzin Cathedral, the Mother See of the Armenian Apostolic Holy Church.<\/span>\u00a0(Photo: Getty\/iStock)<\/span><\/p>\n

The British government has said that it \u201cis monitoring the situation\u201d in Armenia, where the government of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has been locked in a years-long battle with the Armenian Apostolic Holy Church.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Pashinyan has said that the government will be taking over the Church to create a \u201creal, pure state-centred Church\u201d. Critics say the move would violate the Armenian constitution and is reminiscent of a Soviet-era dictator.<\/p>\n

The Armenian government has argued that leading figures in the Church have not only expressed dissent, but called for the violent overthrow of the elected government and for the assassination of government figures.<\/p>\n

At a recent meeting of the Council of Europe, British MP Sir Edward Leigh questioned Armenian Foreign Minister, Ararat Mirzoyan. Sir Edward accused Pashinyan of trying to create a church that is \u201cbanned from dissenting from the state \u2026 to this end he has arrested a third of the bishops of Armenia. How is this anything other than a violation of the democratic rights of freedom of religion and freedom of speech that the Council of Europe is supposed to uphold?\u201d<\/p>\n

In response, Mirzoyan stated, \u201cI completely disagree with some of your qualifications and I\u2019m afraid your information is not completely true \u2026 There is no persecution of clergymen in Armenia.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome citizens of Armenia call for the violent removal of democratically elected government from power through coup d\u2019etats and \u2026 public calls for assassination of some of the leadership of Armenia \u2013 including myself by the way \u2026. The very sad reality in Armenia [is] we do have some clergymen who did this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Separately, Human Rights Watch has issued a report on Armenia that says the country has \u201cserious human rights concerns\u201d, particularly restrictions on the media, a lack of judicial independence, and ineffective measures for investigating police abuses.<\/p>\n

The news that Britain is paying attention to the situation in Armenia was welcomed by lawyers representing Samvel Karapetyan, a billionaire supporter of the Church, who has been detained and had some of his assets nationalised.<\/p>\n

Robert Amsterdam, of Amsterdam & Partners, said, \u201cIt is good news that the UK government is paying attention to the shocking clampdown on religious freedom in Armenia.<\/p>\n

“However, it can and must do more to remind the Armenian authorities of their international obligations and the consequences that will flow if Prime Minister Pashinyan continues on this path.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Etchmiadzin Cathedral, the Mother See of the Armenian Apostolic Holy Church.\u00a0(Photo: Getty\/iStock) The British government has said that it \u201cis monitoring the situation\u201d in Armenia, where the government of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has been locked in a years-long battle with the Armenian Apostolic Holy Church.\u00a0 Pashinyan has said that the government will be taking<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18688,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[5159,2695,82,6050,1310],"class_list":["post-18687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-christian-living","tag-armenian","tag-britain","tag-church","tag-monitoring","tag-situation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18687\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}