Avram Bedros I Ardzivyan (in the Eastern Armenian proclamation Avram Petros I, Abraham Peter I) - the first Patriarch of the Armenian Catholics in modern times .
Born in 1679 in Aintap (modern Gaziantep in Turkey ). Student of the Union Preacher Bishop Melkon Tazpazyan . Since 1710 , Bishop of Aleppo .
A participant in the meeting of the Catholic Catholics in Constantinople in 1714. Here Melkon Tazpazyan was elected the head of the Armenian Catholics, but the meeting participants were arrested. Melkon Tazpazyan and Avram Ardzivyan were sentenced to imprisonment in galleys , where Tazpazyan died a year later. Ardzivyan was released, then again imprisoned (1719-1721) and finally released on condition that he leave Aleppo forever. Settled in Lebanon , where he founded the Armenian Catholic Monastic Order of St. Anthony. In 1739 , the Armenian Catholics of Aleppo obtained permission from the authorities to return Ardzivyan.
With the help of the Greek Catholic bishops, Ardzivyan ordained his assistant Hagop Hovsepyan (Hakob Hovsepyan) and two other clergymen to the episcopal rank; those, in turn, elevated him to the dignity of the patriarch ( November 26, 1740 )
Then the patriarch Avraam Ardzivyan, who also took on the name Bedros (Peter), which has since been worn by all the Armenian Catholic patriarchs, went to Rome so that Pope Benedict XIV approves his election. On November 26, 1742, a commission of cardinals approved the patriarchate of Ardzivyan, on December 8 of the same year, the Pope presented him with pallium .
The Ottoman authorities did not recognize the new patriarchy, established without their permission, and subjected Armenian Catholics to persecution. Unable to return to Constantinople , Ardzivyan again went to the mountains of Lebanon, where he was accompanied by six bishops and 22 monks of the Order of St. Anthony.
He died in 1749 , before his death, appointing Hagop Bedros II Hovsepyan his successor.
Links
- 员圆諓员諃员談 諍缘諒諓請諐 员. 员諓跃曰諕缘员諉 (1679-1749) , Biographical information (in Armenian)