A third judge on Thursday declined to hear the criminal case against Catholicos Karekin II and six other high-level Etchmiadzin bishops.

Judge Vahagn Melikyan, of a Yerevan court of general jurisdiction, has asked the country’s Court of Cassation to determine which court has jurisdiction over the case. This came after a second judge assigned to the case, Serzh Rushanian, last week punted the case to Yerevan from a court in Armavir, citing jurisdiction issues.

A third Armenian judge has effectively refused to hear the criminal case against Catholicos Garegin II and six senior clergymen amid Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s continuing attempts to depose the supreme head of the Armenian Apostolic Church.

Presiding over the case at the first hearing, which was attended by the Catholicos of five of the six bishops, Judge Hakob Manukyan recused himself, citing conflict of interest. He explained that he had studied at the National Law Academy in 2021, when Karekin II’s defense attorney, Ara Zohrabyan, was chairman of Armenia’s Chamber of Attorneys and had personally awarded Manukyan his attorney’s license.

The Court of Cassation told Azatutyun.am on Thursday that Melikyan, the third judge, based his appeal to the Court of Cassation based on criminal procedure code, based on which a court that receives a case on jurisdictional grounds may challenge that jurisdiction before preliminary hearings are scheduled. The issue must then be resolved within five days by the chairman of the Criminal Chamber of the Court of Cassation.

This latest court hearing comes as Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stepped up his crusade against the Catholicos and the Armenian Church by including it in his government’s five-year plan, which was approved by parliament last month by only the votes of the prime minister’s Civil Contract Party lawmakers.