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Enthronement of new Armenian Catholic patriarch

August 17, 2015

Krikor Bedros XX Gabroyan was enthroned as the 20th Armenian Catholic Patriarch of Cilicia on August 9 in Bzommar, Lebanon.

He succeeds Nerses Bedros XIX Tarmouni, who died on June 25.

Krikor Bedros (in English, Gregory Petros) XX Gabroyan was born in Aleppo, Syria, in 1934 and studied in Lebanon and at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. In 1959, he was ordained a priest of the Patriarchal Congregation of Bzommar, an Armenian Catholic religious institute.

Ordained to the episcopate in 1977, he ministered to Armenian Catholics in France until his retirement in 2013.

The new patriarch's July 25 election followed a 10-day gathering of the Armenian Catholic Synod of Bishops. After his election, he requested and was granted ecclesial communion with Pope Francis.

The Armenian Catholic Church is one of the Eastern Catholic churches in full communion with the Holy See. Its first patriarch, a former bishop of the Armenian Apostolic Church, was granted ecclesial communion by Pope Benedict XIV in 1742.

The Armenian Apostolic Church is among the Oriental Orthodox churches that ceased to be in full communion with the Holy See following the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon (451). It has an estimated six million members, while the Armenian Catholic Church now has 566,000 members, according to recent Vatican statistics.

 


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