Cardinal Gregorio Agagianian was the foremost Armenian
figure of the Catholic Church in the twentieth century, and rose to world fame
when in the papal elections of 1958 and 1963 he was about to become the first
non-Italian head of the Church in almost 450 years.
Ghazaros Agagianian was born in Akhaltsikhe, in the
historical region of Javakhk (now in Georgia), on September 18, 1895. His
family was part of the local Armenian Catholic community. After studying at the
seminary of Tiflis, he went to Rome, where he studied at the Urban College of
the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith (now Pontifical
Urbaniana University) and was ordained a priest in 1917 with the name of
Gregorio (Krikor). He returned to Tiflis, where he did pastoral work from
1917-1921. Afterwards, he left Soviet Georgia and became a member of the
faculty at the Pontifical Armenian College in Rome in 1921 and Rector of the
same college from 1932-1937. He also taught at the Urban College from
1922-1932.
Meanwhile, he had been consecrated bishop on July 21,
1935, with a previous appointment as titular Bishop of Comana. The Armenian
Synod elected him Patriarch Catholicos of the House of Cilicia on November 30,
1937, with the name of Krikor-Bedros XV.
In 1938, after an agreement of the French colonial
authorities of Syria and Turkey, the sanjak of Alexandretta (later renamed
Hatay) was annexed to the latter. The efforts of the Armenian community of
Paris, Patriarch Agagianian, and the Vatican representative to Syria and
Lebanon Remi Leprert allowed that many areas of Kessab inhabited by Armenians
remained in Syria. In recent years, the Syrian government renamed one of the
streets of Aleppo after Cardinal Agagianian to honor his efforts.
Agagianian was elevated to the College of Cardinals by
Pope Pius XII with the title of Cardinal-Priest of San Bartolomeo all’Isola in
1946. He participated in the papal conclave of 1958, following the death of
Pius XII, and received a large number of votes, eventually approaching the
majority needed for election. This was confirmed by Pope John XXIII, the
elected pope.
Pope John XXIII standing to the right of Cardinal
Agagianian at the Second Vatican Council
John XXIII appointed Cardinal Agagianian as a member of
the leading body of the Second Vatican Council, where he was a member of the
presidency board from 1963-1965. Agagianian was Pro-Prefect of the Sacred
Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith from 1958-1960 and full Prefect
from 1960-1970. In 1962 he resigned from his position of Armenian Catholic
Patriarch.
After the death of John XXIII, Agagianian participated in
the conclave of 1963, which elected Pope Paul VI. He was rumored to have been
actually elected, but declined to accept. In 1970 he was elevated to the order
of Cardinal-Bishops as Cardinal-Bishop of Albano.
Seven months after this elevation, Cardinal Gregorio
Aghagianian passed away in Rome on May 16, 1971, aged 75, from cancer. He was
buried at the Armenian church of San Nicola da Tolentino, the same place where
he was consecrated bishop thirty-six years earlier.
Previous entries in “This Week in Armenian History” are
on the Prelacy’s web site
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