Armenia: Persecuted church – CiN helps people
Vienna/Yerevan/Shiraz – What is currently unfolding in Armenia is a drama the likes of which we have only ever seen in the persecution of the church in Nicaragua.
On June 27, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan‘s attempt to arrest Archbishop Mikael failed. Hundreds of believers had stood in front of the archbishop and prevented his arrest. But on July 2, it became a sad certainty: Archbishop Mikael Adjapayan, Primate of the Shirak Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church, was arrested for „inciting a coup d‘état“. In Nicaragua‘s dictatorship, bishops and priests are imprisoned on similar charges. CiN has been working with the archbishop since 2023 to help refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) integrate into Armenian society. Children traumatized by war and displacement receive psychological support, and vocational training enables people to regain a foothold in the world of work.
The „Hands for Hope“ project aims to empower displaced people by providing vocational training, psychosocial support and pathways to sustainable employment. Vocational training and psychological support for children are the most important levers for providing effective help. All projects have been implemented with the active support of Archbishop Mikael under the direction of the Social Pedagogical Center of the Archdiocese of Shirak.
Silencing the church as a social admonisher
All in all, it is a transparent maneuver by the Prime Minister to silence the voice of the Church in the fight for the displaced persons and against the destruction of the churches in Nagorno-Karabakh, which are up to 1700 years old. The Prime Minister is also not afraid to accuse all bishops, including the Catholicos, of breaking their celibacy. If the bishop wants to reject this, he must provide proof to the contrary. An impossibility. How can one prove that there are no children? A reversal of evidence that resembles the perpetrator-victim reversal in terror regimes.
Popular church with the support of the population
Since the 2nd century, the Church in Armenia has borne witness to and protected Armenia‘s history, culture and identity, even during the expulsion and Turkish genocide of the Armenians at the beginning of the 20th century. The Viennese Armenian Bishop Tiran wrote to us: „The arrests of Archbishop Mikael and Archbishop Bagrat are not only deeply shocking – what is happening there is simply unthinkable, an intolerable attack on religious freedom and human dignity – and this in a Christian country! What a disgrace.“
That is why our help is more important today than ever!
