Vehapari Patarage Yev Khosqe Hovhannes Shirazi Mahvan Kapaktsutyamb (Catholicos's Mass And Speech On The Death Of Hovhannes Shiraz)

His Holiness Vazgen I, Karapet Abrahami Paljyan, was born in Bucharest. He was baptised on 23 September. He was also given a second name, Levon, and was renamed Levon-Karapet Paljyan. He received his primary education at the Armenian elementary school in Odessa. He studied at the Misakyan-Kesimyan National School in Bucharest, and in 1924–26 at the Higher School of Commerce in Bucharest. In 1936 he graduated from the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy of the University of Bucharest, and in 1937 from the department of practical pedagogy. In 1929–43 he taught at Armenian schools in Bucharest and was a member of the committee aiding Armenian prisoners of war (1942–44). In 1943, by decision of the Diocesan Council of the Armenians of Romania, he went to Athens, where at the Church of St Karapet he was ordained a celibate priest and renamed Vazgen. In November of the same year he was elected locum tenens of the Armenian Diocese of Romania, and then Primate of the diocese (1947–55). In 1948, in the Mother Cathedral of Holy Etchmiadzin, Catholicos of All Armenians Gevorg VI Chorekchyan consecrated him a supreme vardapet, and in 1951 a bishop. In 1954 he also assumed the duties of Primate of the Armenian Diocese of Bulgaria. On 30 September 1955 he was elected Catholicos of All Armenians. In 1952 he was awarded the Romanian Order of the Star of the Republic, in 1962 the Joliot-Curie gold medal of the World Peace Council, in 1968 the gold medal of the Peace Defence Committee, in 1968 the USSR Order of the Badge of Honour, and in 1978 the Order of Friendship of Peoples. In 1991 he was elected an honorary member of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia. On 28 July 1994 he became the first person in Armenia to receive the highest title of National Hero. He died in Yerevan, in his patriarchal residence.