{"id":227344,"date":"2026-01-20T15:43:42","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T11:43:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/?p=227344"},"modified":"2026-01-20T16:44:20","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T12:44:20","slug":"lavrov-says-armenian-church-tensions-and-vardan-ghukasyans-arrest-spark-concern","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/news\/227344\/","title":{"rendered":"Lavrov says Armenian Church tensions and Vardan Ghukasyan\u2019s arrest spark concern"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><body><p>Russia is watching with concern the situation about the Armenian Apostolic Church, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said during a 2025 press conference summarizing Russia&rsquo;s diplomatic activities, <a href=\"https:\/\/tass.ru\/politika\/26195081\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">TASS<\/a> reports.<\/p>\n<p>Regarding Armenia&rsquo;s statements about the presence of hybrid threats in relation to the Church, Lavrov said that Russia views them with confusion.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;This can only cause us some confusion,&rdquo; he noted.<\/p>\n<p>Lavrov added that the arrest of Gyumri Mayor Vardan Ghukasyan has also caused puzzlement and concern, particularly in light of statements about the necessity of a union with Russia.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;He is accused of calling for discussions on Armenia joining the Russia-Belarus Union. Arresting someone for expressing political opinions, which in no way threaten Armenia&rsquo;s sovereignty or territorial integrity but rather aim to maximize foreign relations for national development, naturally causes serious confusion and concern,&rdquo; Lavrov said.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Russia is watching with concern the situation about the Armenian Apostolic Church, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said during a 2025 press conference summarizing Russia&rsquo;s diplomatic activities, TASS reports. Regarding Armenia&rsquo;s statements about the presence of hybrid threats in relation to the Church, Lavrov said that Russia views them with confusion. &ldquo;This can only cause [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":227316,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,35,43,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-227344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-politics","category-world","category-society"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227344"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227344\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":227345,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227344\/revisions\/227345"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}