Bagrat Galstanyan, an Armenian archbishop currently imprisoned, sent a letter to the International Religious Freedom (IRF) Summit in Washington warning that the Armenian Apostolic Church is facing an existential threat and urging U.S. Vice President JD Vance to intervene.
The letter was transmitted by the Switzerland-based advocacy group Christian Solidarity International (CSI) just days after Armenian authorities intensified legal actions against senior church leaders. The message arrived as the IRF Summit convened faith leaders, policymakers, and nongovernmental organizations to address escalating global restrictions on religious freedom.
CSI President John Eibner read Galstanyan’s message aloud during a press conference in Yerevan following a joint prison visit with Swiss parliamentarian Erich Vontobel.
“The simple truth is that the Christian Armenian nation faces an existential threat,” Galstanyan wrote in the letter, which was addressed to former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback and IRF Summit participants.
Galstanyan, a prominent critic of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and leader of the opposition movement known as Sacred Struggle, said his “offense is to speak an unwelcome truth.” According to a statement provided to The Christian Post by Christian Solidarity Worldwide, he warned that Armenia is being reduced to a “vassal state” of Azerbaijan and Turkey through efforts to silence the Armenian Apostolic Church’s independent voice in society.
The archbishop is one of four senior clerics detained by Armenian authorities over the past eight months. In his letter, Galstanyan named Mikael Ajapajyan, Arshak Khachatryan, and Mkrtich Proshyan, stating that all have been subjected to surveillance, public defamation, and arrest.
Armenian prosecutors have brought a range of charges against the detained clergy, including plotting to overthrow the government, coercing citizens to participate in protests, obstructing judicial proceedings, and — in one case — alleged involvement in planting drugs during a 2018 demonstration. Officials claim the actions constitute attempts to destabilize the state.
In his message, Galstanyan accused Pashinyan of seeking to override church leadership, noting that the prime minister has publicly labeled Catholicos Karekin II — the global head of the Armenian Apostolic Church — a “threat to national security.”
Over the weekend, the government charged six bishops with “obstructing a judicial act” and imposed international travel bans ahead of a planned Episcopal Assembly in Austria scheduled for Feb. 16–19. Organizers moved the gathering outside Armenia to preserve independence from state interference.
Eibner described the legal actions as part of “the government’s campaign against the church,” arguing that the effort is intended to dismantle the church’s ability to advocate for Armenian national interests.
In a separate letter addressed directly to Vice President Vance, Galstanyan appealed for U.S. pressure to halt the detentions and to safeguard the rights of Armenians displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh, also known as Artsakh. He called on the vice president to demand the release of Armenian Christian political prisoners held in both Armenia and Azerbaijan and to ensure church participation in any future Armenia–Azerbaijan peace negotiations.
The Armenian Center for Political Rights (ACPR), represented at the Yerevan event by its president Rafael Ishkhanyan, said the government’s actions have entered a third phase, now targeting individual believers with legal pressure.
He linked the crackdown to a 2025 church conference in Bern, where the Catholicos demanded the release of Armenian hostages and the right of return for Artsakh Armenians.
Ishkhanyan contends that event was “the trigger” for the state’s acceleration of anti-church actions, culminating in the charges filed against the bishops this past weekend.
