Conference in Bern leads to political crisis in Armenia

Text by Amalia van Gent, Published on infosperber.ch on 7 July 2025

The head of the church defends the cultural heritage of the Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians. The head of government reacts with outrage.

The images from Ejmiadzin, the religious center of the Armenian Apostolic Church , were shocking: On June 27, armed riot police entered the cathedral's extensive grounds to arrest Archbishop Mikael Ajapahyan, the head of the Shirak Diocese in the northwest of the country. In a heated confrontation, the church's supporters finally succeeded in driving the police from the cathedral grounds.

Growing gap between church and state

The incident was unprecedented. Like the Vatican is for Catholics, Echmiadzin is considered a holy place for Armenians. And, like the Jews, religion is part of Armenian identity.

The number of Armenians is estimated at around ten million. Nearly a third live in the Republic of Armenia, and two-thirds are spread throughout the worldwide diaspora. The incident in Echmiadzin caused great outrage among Armenians both at home and abroad. It was described as a "desecration of a holy site."

The Church Fathers expressed their concern about the latest conflict between church and state: The Armenian Patriarchate in Jerusalem, for example, described the disputes as "shameful and dishonorable," while the influential head of the church in Lebanon, Catholicos Aram I , openly called on the government in Yerevan to proceed "with reverence and calm" to prevent further escalation. Patriarch Sahak II Mashalian of Constantinople sees the "growing gap between church and state" as a danger of a new, self-destructive rift within the nation: "How can the Armenian Apostolic Church and the Armenian state be in conflict with each other?" he asked during a Sunday liturgy in Istanbul. "When there was no state, we Armenians prayed for one for a thousand years."

Wave of arrests

The conflict between the government and the church, which has been escalating for weeks, has culminated in a wave of arrests. Archbishop Mikael Ajapahyan, who was scheduled to be arrested in Ejmiadzin, later surrendered to the police. He is now in pre-trial detention for two months. In the last two weeks of June, 14 opposition representatives were imprisoned. They are clerics, right-wing nationalists, or, like Davit Galstyan, politicians from Nagorno-Karabakh. The most prominent of them, however, is likely the Russian-Armenian entrepreneur Samvel Karapetyan . Karapetyan, a billionaire, is the founder of the Tashir Group, a diversified conglomerate with significant investments in real estate, energy, retail, and infrastructure. He also owns the Electric Networks of Armenia (ENA), the country's main electricity provider. Following Karapetyan's arrest, the government announced its intention to nationalize ENA.

The government accuses the detainees of plotting the violent overthrow of the constitutional order. According to the report, this small group of "adventurers" planned to destabilize the country with bombs and terrorist attacks. The detainees, however, view the government's actions as a crude attempt to intimidate the opposition.

Armenia Conference in Bern

The crisis that is shaking Armenia so fundamentally appears to have its origins in a conference last May organized by the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the Evangelical Reformed Church of Switzerland in Bern. The main topic of the Armenian conference in Bern was how to ensure religious freedom in the South Caucasus and the protection of Armenian cultural and historical heritage in Nagorno-Karabakh.

A brief review: In an attack dubbed a "blitzkrieg" in September 2023, Azerbaijan expelled around 120,000 people from their historic homeland within just under a week. Since then, according to the conference's final communiqué, "we have witnessed the eradication of the millennia-old presence of Armenian Christians in the region and the destruction of churches, cemeteries, monuments, and other holy sites."

In addition to numerous clergy, the Bern Conference also included prominent scholars, lawyers, and politicians. The Swiss historian Hans-Lukas Kieser and the Turkish researcher Taner Akçam are internationally recognized authorities on the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire. Approximately 1.5 million Armenians died in massacres and death marches in the shadow of the First World War. It was the first genocide of such macabre proportions in the 20th century.

Among the participating lawyers were Luis Moreno Ocampo , former Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague (ICJ), and Adama Dieng , former Plenipotentiary of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Both are addressing the question of how justice can be restored in cases of serious war crimes. The conference in Bern debated the return of the 120,000 displaced persons to Nagorno-Karabakh.

This is nothing new: As early as November 2023, the International Court of Justice ordered Azerbaijan to ensure the "safe, unhindered, and expeditious return of the displaced persons." And a year later, the European Parliament also called on Azerbaijan to facilitate the "safe and dignified return of the displaced persons" and to protect the Armenian cultural heritage of Nagorno-Karabakh. Finally, the National Council and the Council of States submitted a motion calling on the Federal Council to mediate to facilitate the return of the displaced persons to Nagorno-Karabakh—a plea that likely fell on deaf ears at the FDFA due to realpolitik considerations.

Relentless power struggle

The government in Yerevan viewed the head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Catholicos Karekin II,'s advocacy for the rights of the Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians in Bern as gross interference by the church in politics. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan personally attacked the church leader and demanded his resignation. He accused Karekin II of being the father of a child and thus violating his vow of celibacy.

In response, high-ranking clerics accused the head of government of merely serving the interests of Turkey and Azerbaijan and of being "circumcised" like the Turks. The verbal exchange between the opponents took on almost absurd forms on social media. Phrases like "show me your child, and I'll show you my penis" shocked the entire nation.

Unattainable peace

Nikol Pashinyan is under pressure: Having come to power in 2018 in the wake of a peaceful social revolution, he promised his voters a "modern" state with greater rule of law, more rights for all, and less corruption. Some of these promises have remained unfulfilled.

Two years later, Azerbaijan launched its first war of aggression against Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh, and in 2023, the last to date. Both wars ended in a crushing defeat for Armenia because Azerbaijan, equipped with state-of-the-art weapons by Turkey, Israel, and more recently Pakistan, was more powerful than ever. Nikol Pashinyan knows that another war could potentially mean the end of the Republic of Armenia. Therefore, he is striving for a peace agreement with his overwhelmingly powerful neighbor Azerbaijan and wants to normalize bilateral relations with Turkey. Critics accuse Pashinyan of seeking peace "at any price." In the name of peace, he has also shown himself willing to accept painful concessions, such as the loss of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Pashinyan's visit to Turkey

On May 19, Nikol Pashinyan paid a working visit to Ankara—the first ever by an Armenian head of government to Turkey. Pashinyan hoped that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan could still persuade Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to sign a peace agreement. He also hoped that Turkey would temporarily open the shared border to third-country nationals, as agreed since 2022. Turkey has kept this border closed since 1991, in violation of international law, strangling the Armenian economy.

But Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Ilham Aliyev left the guest from Yerevan empty-handed. Nikol Pashinyan's popularity reached a new low. A poll conducted at the end of June showed that almost 70 percent of Armenians no longer believe in peace with Azerbaijan.

Start of new elections

New elections will be held in Armenia next year. They are considered pivotal elections that will determine whether the country continues its current course of rapprochement with Europe or changes sides. Last Friday, prominent prisoner Samvel Karapetyan called on Nikol Pashinyan to resign from his prison cell: "Nikol has no place in Armenia anymore." Armenia should be governed by a new force that "represents our identity, our faith, our church, our spiritual and national foundations," Karapetyan said. There is no doubt that the church, which sees itself as the guardian of precisely these traditional values, is on the side of the demanded new force.

A change of course in Armenia would also fundamentally alter the political situation in the South Caucasus. After the Israeli attack on Iran, the mullah regime is too weak to assert its previous influence in the South Caucasus. Following Pashinyan's recent visit to Ankara, Turkey has missed its opportunity to broker peace in the South Caucasus and thus consolidate its influence. A change of course in Armenia following Georgia's example would put the entire region under de facto Russian control again.

That's why the fight is being waged with all-out force at all levels. Russian journalist Vladimir Solovyov, a leading exponent of Russian state propaganda, regularly insults the Pashinyan government on Russian public radio, calling it "venal, vile, and insignificant" and Nikol Pashinyan a "Turk." High-ranking Russian politicians also frequently and publicly repeat that the current Armenian government has "betrayed the country's history," "abandoned Nagorno-Karabakh," and "destroyed sacred symbols." If there is a "hybrid war," then it is being waged successfully in Armenia. Confused about what is right and what is wrong, these arguments are adopted unfiltered by a large section of the population and the clergy.

A question of security

"For voters, the issue of security is of primary importance," says political analyst Tigran Grigorian. Armenians will vote for the geostrategic partner from whom they expect greater security. This time, voters are concerned "with the survival of their republic, with its very existence." Intoxicated by its victory in the two Karabakh wars, Azerbaijan is openly laying claim to the so-called Zangezur Corridor in southern Armenia, declaring it the "historical homeland of the West Azerbaijanis." Should Armenia not comply, Azerbaijan threatens a new war.