Consecration of Khoren I, Catholicos of the Holy See of Cilicia (May 12, 1963)

After the premature and unexpected passing of Zareh I, Catholicos of the Holy See of Cilicia, in February 1963, at the age of forty-eight, it fell to his schoolmate at the Seminary, Archbishop Khoren Paroyan, and the difficult task to steer the ship of the Catholicosate in hard times. The “greeting of Jerusalem” with Catholicos of All Armenians Vazken I, in October would mend the rift that had appeared in the Armenian Church after the election of Zareh I in 1956.

The future Catholicos was born Mesrob Paroyan on November 24, 1914, in Nicosia (Cyprus), from parents from Kharpert. He spent his childhood in the village of Adalia. Returning to Nicosia in 1927, he entered the local Melikian primary school. Upon graduation in 1931, he was admitted to the newly founded Seminary of the Catholicosate of the Holy See of Cilicia in Antelias. He graduated and was ordained deacon in 1935. Two years later, he took the vows of celibacy and was consecrated monk (apegha) with the name Khoren, receiving the rank of archimandrite (vartabed) in 1938.

He occupied different positions in the Catholicosate from 1938-1942: chancellor, staff-bearer, vice dean of the Seminary, and member of the Brotherhood’s Administrative Council. In 1942 the Representative Assembly of the Prelacy of Beria (Aleppo) elected the young vartabed as Vicar in the region of Jazeera (on the borders with Turkey and Iraq), where 35,000 Armenians lived at the time. He organized the ecclesiastic, socio-cultural, and educational life for the next five years, during a turbulent period when Syria was engaged in the struggle for independence from the French mandate. Meanwhile, in 1946 he was elevated to the rank of dzayrakooyn vartabed.

In 1947 he returned to Antelias and Catholicos Karekin I consecrated him bishop. From 1947-1951 he held the two most important positions of the Catholicosate, sacristan and “door’s bishop” (turan yebisgobos), the latter providing all internal administrative matters. The Representative Assembly of the Prelacy of Lebanon elected him Prelate in late 1951. Bishop Khoren Paroyan once again showed his remarkable skills as administrator and builder, renovating and building new churches and schools.

The election of a successor to Karekin I, who died in 1952, had been postponed several times. After the Brotherhood Assembly elected Bishop Paroyan as new Vicar of the Catholicosate in October 1955, his expediency ensured the holding of elections in February 1956. He would become the right arm of newly elected Catholicos Zareh I.

He was elevated to the rank of archbishop in 1956 and visited the United States as Catholicosal Legate between October 1957 and June 1958. During his eight-month sojourn, he visited all Armenian centers in this country, celebrating the Divine Liturgy, preaching, lecturing, and explaining the role and mission of the Catholicosate in the Diaspora. As a result of his tireless organizational work, the Armenian Prelacy of the United States and Canada was born in 1958. After departing from the United States, he also visited the newly admitted prelacies of Greece, Tehran, Ispahan, and Iranian Azerbaijan.

His Holiness Khoren visits the Secretary-General of the United Nations, U Thant, on April 16, 1969, during his extended visit to the United States

After Catholicos Zareh I’s passing, Archbishop Khoren was elected once again Vicar and organized the elections held three months later, with the participation, for the first times, of representatives of the new prelacies of the United States, Greece, and Iran. He was elected Catholicos of the Holy See of Cilicia and consecrated on May 12, 1963. Catholicos Khoren’s twenty-year tenure was marked by a wide effort to improve and renovate the monastery of Antelias, as well as the seminary in Bikfaya. He also executed the construction of affordable housing for Armenian families in the neighborhood of Fanar and initiated the construction of the Armenian Home for the Aged. He visited the faithful in the different countries, including a four-month visit to the United States and Canada in 1969. He had also met Pope Paul VI at the Vatican in 1967, while elevating the visibility of the Catholicosate both in the relations with the other Armenian denominations and the ecumenical field.

 

Health problems affected Khoren I starting with a heart crisis in 1969 during his American trip. In 1977, after the celebration of the fortieth anniversary of his consecration as celibate priest, Archbishop Karekin Sarkissian, then Prelate of the Eastern Prelacy, was elected Catholicos Coadjutor. He would become Khoren I’s successor after his death on February 9, 1983, opening a new chapter in the history of the Catholicosate.

Death of Karekin I Hovsepiants, Catholicos of the Holy See of Cilicia, June 21, 1952

“Armenian people, believe in your past, in your history, in the God of your fathers, in their immortal and alive soul, and you will not die. Believe that you will live and act with that believe, work and hope... and you will not die.”

These words belong to Karekin Hovsepiants, one of the most remarkable figures of the Armenian Apostolic Church in the twentieth century. A Church leader, he was also a distinguished scholar of Armenian studies and a name of national proportions.

Karekin Hovsepiants (his birth name was also Karekin) was born in the village of Maghavuz (Karabagh) in 1867. He studied in the Kevorkian Seminary of Holy Ecthmiadzin from 1882-1890. He pursued higher studies in Germany (Leipzig, Halle and Berlin) from 1892-1897, and obtained his doctorate in Theology from Leipzig University with a dissertation on the origins of monothelitism, the Christological doctrine about how the divine and human relate in the person of Jesus that formally emerged in Armenia and Syria in the seventh century.

Karekin Hovsepiants returned to the Caucasus and had a flourishing activity. He was ordained a celibate priest in 1897. After three years of intense teaching at the Seminary of Holy Etchmiadzin (1897-1900), which he had to interrupt due to health problems, he was designated Vicar of the Armenian diocese of Tiflis and participated actively in the intellectual life of the Armenian community (1900-1902). He was later the principal of the diocesan school of Yerevan (1902-1905), dean of the Seminary (1905-1907), editor of Ararat, the journal of the Catholicosate (1906-1907), abbot of the monastery of Saint Hripsime (1907-1914), again dean of the Seminary (1914-1917). In the meantime, his research and publication had gained him the respect of the Armenian intelligentsia.

In 1917, Catholicos of All Armenians Kevork V consecrated him as bishop. In May 1918 Hovsepiants participated actively in the crucial battle of Sardarabad and was decorated for his bravery by the government of the newly-founded Republic of Armenia. In 1920, he established a chair of Armenian Art and Archaeology at the newly created Yerevan State University. After the establishment of the Soviet regime, the chair was closed, most probably because the religious content of art ran counter to Soviet ideology.

He continued his ecclesiastic and intellectual activities and in 1927 he was designated Primate of the diocese of Russia, Crimea, and Nor Nakhichevan. In 1932 he became a member of the Supreme Spiritual Council of Holy Etchmiadzin and in 1934 was designated nuncio for the Armenian Diaspora by Catholicos Khoren I. He traveled through different communities and from 1936-1938 he tried unsuccessfully to mend the split in the Armenian Church of America. From 1938-1943 he was Primate of the Armenian Diocese of America.

He was elected Catholicos of the Holy See of Cilicia in 1943 but due to the difficulties of World War II he was only able to take the position in 1945. The Catholicate had just come out from the very difficult years following its establishment in Antelias in 1929. During his seven-year tenure, Catholicos Karekin I gave a powerful momentum to administrative, ecclesiastic, educational, and publishing activities, and turned the Catholicate into a focus of Armenian life in the Diaspora. He also continued to publish very important works about Armenian history and art. After suffering two heart attacks in 1950, he was confined to bed until his passing on June 21, 1952.

Shortly after his death, a twenty-year-old seminarian, Neshan Sarkissian, was ordained a priest and took the name Karekin in remembrance of the late Catholicos. He would go on to become Catholicos Karekin II of Cilicia and later Karekin I of All Armenians.