Editing Vazgen I

{{Short description|Patriarch of the Armenian Apostolic Church (1955-1994)}}{{Citations needed|date=April 2023}}{{Infobox Christian leader
| honorific-prefix = His Holiness, [[National Hero of Armenia]]
| name = Vazgen / Vazken I
| patriarch_of = 
| honorific-suffix = Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians
| image = Vazgen I.png
| caption = 
| ordination = 
| consecration = 
| enthroned = 1955
| ended = 1994
| church = [[Armenian Apostolic Church]]
| see = [[Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin]]
| predecessor = [[George VI of Armenia|George VI]]
| successor = [[Karekin I]]
| other_post = 
| birth_name = Levon Garabed Baljian
| birth_date = {{Birth date|mf=yes|1908|09|20}}
| birth_place = [[Bucharest]], [[Kingdom of Romania]]
| death_date = {{Death date|mf=yes|1994|8|18}} (aged 85)
| death_place = [[Yerevan]], [[Armenia]]
| buried = [[Mother Cathedral of Holy Etchmiadzin]]
| nationality = 
| religion = 
| residence = 
| parents = 
| spouse = 
| children = 
| occupation = 
| profession = 
| alma_mater = 
| signature = 
}}
'''Vazgen I''' also '''Vazken I of Bucharest''' ({{Langx|hy|Վազգէն Ա Բուխարեստցի}}), born '''Levon Garabed Baljian''' ({{lang|hy|Լևոն Կարապետ Աբրահամի Պալճյան}}; September 20, 1908 – August 18, 1994)<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/624235/Vazgen-I|title=Vazgen I|publisher=Encyclopædia Britannica}}</ref> was the [[Catholicos of All Armenians]] between 1955 and 1994, for a total of 39 years, the [[List of catholicoi of all Armenians|4th longest reign]] in the history of the [[Armenian Apostolic Church]]. 

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 in 1955, moving to [[Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic|Soviet Armenia]]. Vazgen I led the Armenian Church during the [[dissolution of the Soviet Union]], and was the first Catholicos in newly independent Armenia.

==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>

==Gallery==
<gallery class="center">
File:Erevan - Meeting of Catholicos of Armenia & Georgia - October 1972.jpg|Meeting of Vazgen I and [[David V, Catholicos-Patriarch of Georgia|David V]], [[Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia]], Yerevan, October 1972.

File:Architectural-Commission-of-the-Mother-See-(1970-1988).jpg| Architectural Commission of the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin (1970–1988). First row from left: [[Varazdat Harutyunyan]], Vazgen I, K. Altunyan Second row from left: [[Baghdasar Arzoumanian]], H. Babakhanian, [[Grigor Khanjyan]], A. Galikyan, M. Hovhannisyan

File:ArmenianStamps-046.jpg| Vazgen I on an [[Postage stamps and postal history of Armenia|Armenian postage stamp]]

File:Vazgen First Bust, Vanadzor (2).jpg|Statue in front of Vazgen I Elementary School in [[Vanadzor]]

File:Vazgen Arajin 2.JPG|Statue in a park in Echmiadzin

File:VazgenItomb.jpg|Vazgen I's [[tombstone]]

</gallery>

{{-}}

==Awards==
* [[National Hero of Armenia]] (28.07.1994) — for exceptional services in preserving and enhancing national and spiritual values
* [[Order of the Red Banner of Labor]] (09.19.1988) — for peacekeeping activities and in connection with the eightieth anniversary of his birth
* [[Order of Friendship of Peoples]] (09.19.1978) — for patriotic activities in defense of peace and in connection with the seventieth anniversary of his birth
* [[Order of the Badge of Honor]] (09.19.1968) — for great patriotic activity in defense of peace and in connection with the sixtieth anniversary of his birth
* [[Order of the Star of the Romanian Socialist Republic]] (1952)
* Gold Peace Medal named after Frederic Joliot-Curie (1962) – for his great contribution to the promotion of peace
* Gold Medal of the Soviet Peace Committee (1968)

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
{{commons}}
* [https://www.mediathek.at/atom/017829FA-3AE-00976-00000BEC-01772EE2 Audio recording with Vazgen I] in the Online Archive of the [[Österreichische Mediathek]] (Interview in German and Armenian). Retrieved 18 September 2019

{{National Heroes of Armenia}}
{{Authority control}}

{{s-start}}
{{s-rel|oo}}
{{s-bef|before=[[George VI of Armenia|George VI]]}}
{{s-ttl|title=[[List of Catholicoi of Armenia|Catholicoi of the Mother See of Holy Echmiadzin and All Armenians]]|years=1955–1994}}
{{s-aft|after=[[Karekin I]]}}
{{s-end}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vazgen 01}}
[[Category:1908 births]]
[[Category:1994 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century Romanian philosophers]]
[[Category:Clergy from Bucharest]]
[[Category:University of Bucharest alumni]]
[[Category:National Hero of Armenia]]
[[Category:Recipients of the Order of Friendship of Peoples]]
[[Category:Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour]]
[[Category:Catholicoi of Armenia]]
[[Category:20th-century Armenian philosophers]]
[[Category:Romanian bishops]]
[[Category:Romanian people of Armenian descent]]
[[Category:Romanian Oriental Orthodox Christians]]
[[Category:Romanian emigrants to the Soviet Union]]
[[Category:Deaths from cancer in Armenia]]