Editing Vazgen I (section)

==Biography==
Vazgen was born in [[Bucharest]] to a family belonging to the [[Armenians of Romania|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.

His rise through the hierarchy of the Church culminated in 1955 when, on September 30, 1955, he was elected Catholicos of All Armenians, becoming one of the youngest Catholicoi in the history of the Armenian Apostolic Church. He reigned until his death in 1994. In 1965, he attended the [[Conference of Addis Ababa]], in order to strengthen ties to the other [[Oriental Orthodox Churches|Miaphysite churches]]. During his long time as Catholicos, he managed to assert some independence for his church in face of the Soviet rule in the Armenian SSR, and lived to see [[Freedom of religion|religious freedom]] restored under Armenia's national government in 1991.

From then on, he was 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.

[[Vasily Grossman]] wrote that he sensed "nothing fanatical" about Vazgen, describing him as "intelligent, educated, and worldly," with "an enlightened worldliness" being "his most striking quality." He found him to be "clearly not a great man" and "unremarkable."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Grossman |first1=Vasily |author1-link=Vasily Grossman |translator=Robert Chandler and Elizabeth Chandler |title=An Armenian Sketchbook |date=2013 |publisher=[[New York Review Books|NYRB Classics]] |location=New York |isbn=9781590176184 |pages= 88, 105  }}</ref>

He died at his residence in Yerevan on August 18, 1994, after a long illness from cancer.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1994/08/19/obituaries/vazgen-i-head-of-armenian-church-dies-at-85.html?pagewanted=1|title=Vazgen I, Head of Armenian Church, Dies at 85|work=[[The New York Times]]|author=Wolfgang Saxon|date=1994-08-19}}</ref>