Russia concerned about attacks on Armenian church

The recent conflict regarding the Armenian Apostolic Church must be settled, with Russia calling for an end to unjustified attacks against the church, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday.

"We have discussed this issue and serious concerns were voiced regarding the current developments at the level of interior affairs in Armenia," Lavrov told reporters following the Collective Security Treaty Organization’s (CSTO) Council of Foreign Ministers meeting.

"It is clear that this is a purely domestic affair of our neighbors, but, certainly, the attacks on the canonical, thousand-year-old Armenian Apostolic Church raise serious concerns," he continued.

"The Church has traditionally been one of the key pillars of Armenian society, and we would like not to see this Church subjected to unjustified attacks, in fact, without any serious grounds," Lavrov noted.

"We [Russia] want to see a resolution of this conflict, this current situation, as soon as possible on the basis of the Armenian Constitution, on the basis of complete respect regarding the rights of believers, and indeed any other human rights," Russia’s top diplomat stated.

On Friday morning last week, masked security officials stormed the Shirak Diocese building in Armenia’s Gyumri and launched searches. At that time, Archbishop Mikayel Ajapahyan had already left for the Holy See of Etchmiadzin to attend a clergy meeting.

On June 26, Shirak Diocese head Mikayel Ajapakhyan was arrested by the Yerevan court for two months, according to his lawyer Ara Zohrabyan. Later that day, the Armenian Prosecutor General's Office initiated a criminal probe against him on charges of calling for the overthrow of the constitutional order.