VATICAN Agagianian, on his way to the altars, the patriarch who raised the Armenians from the genocide

Today the cause for the beatification and canonization of Patriarch (and Cardinal) Gregory Peter XV Agagianian opens in Rome. The Card. De Donatis celebrated mass at St. John Lateran in the presence of the current Minassian Armenian Primate. A testimony of faith through works; his contribution to the Council.

Rome () – A “simple” spirituality, a “humble and religious” person, who distinguished himself “by the strength of his faith”, of which “we are witnesses today, on this path” that leads him to the honor of the altars. The current Armenian Patriarch Rafael Bedros XXI Minassian remembered his predecessor and Cardinal Gregory Peter XV Agagianian, whose cause for beatification and canonization opens today in Rome. He was the only cardinal of the Armenian Church and twice (1958 and 1963) a candidate for the papacy. He passed away in 1971 and was one of the leading figures of the Second Vatican Council as a member of the directive commission. The celebration, presided over by the Cardinal Vicar of the capital Angelo De Donatis, was held in the Basilica of San Juan de Letrán, with the presence of the current Primate.

“We remember with gratitude – says Patriarch Minassian in an interview with abouna.org– that he began with the construction of schools, places of worship, centers for the care and protection of orphans and many ecclesiastical, spiritual and monastic institutions”. Of these, he adds, “probably the most important is the institution of the Order of Saint Mother Teresa”, which reflects her way of living the faith and bearing witness to Christ “through works”, as Saint Paul says. .

The patriarch, born Ghazaros Agagianian on September 18, 1895 in Akhaltsikhe – which at the time was within the Russian Empire and is now part of Georgia – completed his studies at the Urbaniana University in Rome and was ordained a priest on December 23, 1917. A few years later he obtained his doctorate and spent some time as a parish priest in Tbilisi. He returned to Rome and was appointed vice-rector and later rector of the Armenian College. At Urbaniana, where he was also rector, he taught Cosmology and Sacramental Theology; he was fluent in not only Armenian but also Italian, French, English, Georgian, Russian, Latin, and Greek.

In 1935 he was appointed Bishop of Comana, Armenia and two years later Catholicos Patriarch of Cilicia by the Synod of Bishops of the Armenian Catholic Church. Confirmed by the Pope on December 13, 1937, he took the name Gregory Peter XV. Under his leadership, the Armenian Church regained prestige and value in the diaspora, after the atrocious sufferings of the genocide at the hands of the Ottoman Empire in 1915, during the First World War. Created a cardinal in 1946 by Pius XII, in 1955 he was elected president of the pontifical commission for the drafting of the Oriental Code of Canon Law, which is why he decided to resign from the leadership of the patriarchate.

In 1960 he was appointed Prefect of Propaganda Fide. From that position, he closely accompanied the formation of missionaries throughout the world and liberalized the policies of the Church in developing countries. At the Council he played a leading role in the preparation of the Missionary Decree “Ad Gentes” and the Constitution on the Church in the Modern World “Gaudium et Spes”. On October 19, 1970 he resigned as prefect of the Vatican dicastery and was appointed cardinal bishop of the suburbicarian diocese of Albano, taking up residence at the Armenian college. A few months later, on May 16, 1971, he died in Rome after a short illness and was buried in the Armenian church of San Nicola da Tolentino.

The current Minassian patriarch has lived in the first person the experience of some “unnatural” works, as he calls them. Among them that “his body continued to sweat for more than three days after death”, a sign of “something abnormal”. Furthermore, “while we were praying at his bedside, in the last moments of his life, we suddenly heard him say that he was thirsty, but not for water, but for ‘the sanctity of your souls.’ He said exactly that”. He, the current primate concludes, “is not the first saint of the Armenian Church”, which is “full of martyrs and saints” beginning with the victims of the genocide, but with his testimony “he teaches us to be present in this time and to give a better example of holiness”, immersed in the events that we are experiencing today.