Conflict between government and church in Armenia stirred by same forces as in Ukraine – ex-diplomat

Russia Today

a day ago

An ongoing assault on the Armenian Apostolic Church (AAC) has been orchestrated by the same forces in the West that fueled religious tensions in Ukraine, a former diplomat from the country, Andrey Telizhenko, has told RT. The unrest could result in an armed civil conflict, he warned.
The standoff between Armenia's authorities and the AAC has escalated over the past few weeks, as Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan repeatedly attacked the church, accusing it of various violations and corruption.
The situation further deteriorated after the arrest of Samvel Karapetyan, a prominent Russian-Armenian businessman, who voiced his support for the AAC and was immediately detained and accused of calling for the overthrow of the government.
This week, Armenian authorities arrested two prominent clerics: Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, the leader of the Sacred Struggle opposition movement, and Archbishop Mikael Adjapahyan, accusing them of plotting a coup. This sparked protests that devolved into clashes with police.
Speaking to RT on Sunday, Telizhenko condemned the latest arrests, warning the conflict between the government and the church could potentially have severe implications for Armenia.
'This is a tragedy for the people of Armenia because when the government is going after the clergy, going after the church, the main church of the country, and trying to break it. This is like almost terrorism,' he said.
What's happening in Armenia is a part of a broader 'chain of events that is happening throughout Eastern Europe,' Telizhenko added, suggesting that the West 'is behind all this.'
Telizhenko drew parallels between the situation in Armenia and the events his country endured over the past decade, namely the state-led assault on the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), originally subordinate to the Moscow Patriarchy.
While the UOC severed ties with the patriarchate shortly after the conflict between Moscow and Kiev escalated in early 2022, the move did not save it from further persecution.
'This happened in Ukraine, where we had the fake OCU church formed under [the] Poroshenko regime by the Democrats and the deep state, and [Nancy] Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, and [Victoria] Nuland, they formed a church. And that's when they started to break the Orthodox Church, the real Orthodox Church in Ukraine, which is the Russian Orthodox Church,' Telizhenko said, adding that the only difference now was that the EU became the 'new swamp for the deep state.'
The events in Ukraine, Armenia, and Moldova, which has also experienced tensions between state and the church, have been guided by the same 'puppeteers,' he suggested, warning that the unrest could ultimately lead to civil wars.
'If [the deep state opts to] go out of Ukraine, because it's all interconnected… they're going to try to make civil wars in these regions,' Telizhenko claimed.