Former Armenian president Levon Ter-Petrosyan has publicly called on PM Nikol Pashinyan to immediately release two detained Armenian Apostolic Church archbishops -  Bagrat Galstyan and Mikayel Ajapahyan.

Ter-Petrosyan, in a public statement issued today, also called on Pashinyan to cancel a rally he's hinted at holding in Etchmiadzin, where the headquarters of the Armenian Apostolic Church is located.

Pashinyan, in a weekend Facebook post, appealed to his supporters to prepare for a rally in Etchmiadzin to oust Catholicos Garegin II. Pashinyan has accused the catholicos of fathering a child in violation of his celibacy vows.

Galstyan and Ajapahyan have been charged with publicly calling for seizing power and overthrowing constitutional order in Armenia.

“I am confident that this step will be viewed not as a sign of weakness by our people, but as a manifestation of commonsense worthy of a statesman,” Ter-Petrosyan writes, maintaining that Pashinyan will be solely responsible for possible clashes and bloodshed it he doesn’t.

Ter-Petrosyan also urged people not to attend any such rally.

The former Armenian president also called on Pashinyan to release businessman Samvel Karapetyan who was detained in June after he gave a press interview in which he denounced those politicians who have called for a new leader of the Armenian Apostolic Church.

Ter-Petrosyan described the three detainees as "political prisoners".