Vazgen I
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His Holiness Vazgen / Vazken I Surpreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians |
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| Church | Armenian Apostolic Church |
| See | Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin |
| Installed | 1953 |
| Term ended | 1994 |
| Predecessor | George VI |
| Successor | Karekin I |
| Personal details | |
| Birth name | Levon Garabed Baljian |
| Born |
September 20, 1908 Bucharest, Romania |
| Died | August 18, 1994 (aged 85) Etchmiadzin, Armenia |
| Buried | Mother Cathedral of Holy Etchmiadzin |
Vazgen I also Vazken I of Bucharest, (Armenian: Վազգէն Ա Բուխարեստցի), born Levon Garabed Baljian (Armenian: Լևոն Կարապետ Աբրահամի Պալճյան; September 20, 1908 – August 18, 1994) was the Catholicos of the Armenian Apostolic Church between 1953 and 1994, in one of the longest reigns of the Armenian Catholicoi. A native of Romania, he began his career as a philosopher, before becoming a Doctor of Theology and a member of the local Armenian clergy. The leader of the Armenian Apostolic Church hierarchy in Romania, he became Catholicos during the 1950s, moving to the Soviet Union and residing in the Armenian SSR. Vazgen I led the Armenian Church during the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and was the first Catholicos in newly independent Armenia.
Vazgen was born in Bucharest to a family belonging to the Armenian-Romanian community. His father was a shoemaker and his mother was a schoolteacher. The young Levon Baljian did not initially pursue the Church as a profession, instead graduating from the University of Bucharest's Faculty of Philosophy and Letters. After graduation, he became a philosopher and published a series of scholarly articles.
As his interests began to shift from philosophy to theology, Baljian studied Armenian Apostolic Theology and Divinity in Athens, Greece. He eventually gained the title of vardapet, an ecclesiastical rank for learned preachers and teachers in the Armenian Apostolic Church roughly equivalent to receiving a doctorate in theology. In the 1940s, he became a bishop, and then the arajnord (leader) of the Armenian Apostolic Church in Romania.
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