Leon Tourian

Archbishop Leon Tourian (1 January 1879 – 24 December 1933) was the primate of the Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church of America. He was assassinated in New York City by his political opponents.

Ghevont Tourian was born 1 January 1879 in Istanbul, Ottoman Empire. Before his appointment to New York in 1931, Tourian was archbishop of Smyrna, Vicar Patriarch of Constantinople, and later a prelate in Greece, Bulgaria, and in Manchester, United Kingdom.

The incident that resulted in a plot to assassinate the archbishop took place on 1 July 1933, in a pavilion for the celebration of Armenian Day at the Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago. Archbishop Tourian, upon his arrival to deliver an invocation, ordered the removal of the red, blue, and orange Tricolor of the Democratic Republic of Armenia (1918–1920) from the stage before he would step out on it.

From the archbishop's point of view, appearing beside this flag would provoke the wrath of Armenia's Soviet government, which was a serious concern, since the church's ultimate seat of spiritual authority lay in the Holy See at Etchmiadzin, within the borders of Soviet Armenia, and the Catholicos of All Armenians felt bound to keep peace with Soviet authorities.

However the members of the nationalist Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF), known as Dashnaks, for whom the flag was a sacred symbol of the Armenian nation, took this as an act of treason. Tourian was soon attacked by five ARF members in Worcester, Massachusetts. Two of the attackers were convicted. After this incident Tourian hired a bodyguard.

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