| Vazgen I |
Article Index for Vazgen |
Information AboutVazgen I |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT VAZGEN I | |
| armenian-romanians | |
| catholicoi of armenia | |
| oriental orthodox christians | |
| people from bucharest | |
| 1908 births | |
| vazgen i | |
| 1994 deaths | |
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Vazgen was born in Bucharest , Romania to a family belonging to the Armenian Minority . His father was a shoemaker and his mother was a school teacher. The young Levon Baljian did not initially pursue the Church as a profession, instead graduating from the philosophy faculty of the University of Bucharest. After graduation, he became a philosopher and published many scholarly articles. As his interests began to shift from philosophy to theology, Baljian studied Armenian Apostolic theology and divinity in Athens. 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. His rise through the hierarchy of the Church culminated in 1955 when he was elected catholicos, becoming one of the youngest catholicoi in the history of the Armenian Apostolic Church. He would reign until his death in 1994. During his long time as Catholicos, he managed to assert some independence for his church in face of the Totalitarian Soviet rule in the Armenian SSR , and lived to see Religious Freedom restored under the national Armenian government in 1991 . From then on, he was very busy renewing ancient Armenian churches and reviving institutions of the church. He saved a number of church treasures by establishing the Alex Manoogian Museum of the Mother Church. Vazgen intensified contacts with the Armenian Catholic Church , with the aim of reuniting both wings of Armenian Christianity. REFERENCES
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