Gregorio Pietro XV Agagianian (; anglicized: Gregory Peter; Western , Krikor Bedros ŽĒ. Aghajanian; born Ghazaros Aghajanian; 15 September 1895 – 16 May 1971) was an Armenian Catholic prelate who served as Patriarch of Cilicia from 1937 to 1962 and as Prefect of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith from 1958 to 1970. He was considered papabile on two occasions, in 1958 and 1963. He was made a cardinal in 1946 by Pope Pius XII.
Educated in Tiflis and Rome, Agagianian first served as leader of the Armenian Catholic community of Tiflis before the Bolshevik takeover of the Caucasus in 1921. He then moved to Rome, where he first taught and then headed the Pontifical Armenian College until 1937 when he was elected to lead the Armenian Catholic Church, which he revitalized after major losses the church had experienced during the Armenian genocide.
Theologically a moderate, a linguist, and an authority on the Soviet Union, Agagianian served as one of the four moderators at the Second Vatican Council. His cause for canonization was opened in 2022.
Early life Agagianian was born Ghazaros Aghajanian on 15 September 1895, in the city of Akhaltsikhe, in the Tiflis Governorate of the Russian Empire (in present-day Samtskhe-Javakheti province of Georgia) to Harutiun Aghajanian and Iskuhi Sarukhanian. Around the time of his birth, around 60% of the city's 15,000 inhabitants were Armenians.According to the Russian Empire Census of 1897. His family was part of the Armenian Catholic minority among the Javakheti Armenians, most of whom were followers of the Armenian Apostolic Church. His ancestors had emigrated from Erzurum, fleeing Ottoman persecution, to the Russian Caucasus after the Russo-Turkish War of 1828–1829.
His father died when he was five. Agagianian said he "had been engaged in various small businesses." He had a brother, Petros (Peter), who was a telegraph operator, and a sister, Elizaveta, the widow of an office worker, who both lived in the Soviet Union. In 1962 his sister Elizaveta travelled to Rome through the intervention of Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev.
Education and priesthood Agagianian received primary education at the Karapetian School in Akhaltsikhe. He later attended the Russian Orthodox Tiflis Seminary and then the Pontifical Urban University in Rome in 1906. His outstanding performance in the latter was noted by Pope Pius X, who told the young Agagianian: "You will be a priest, a bishop, and a patriarch." He was ordained priest in Rome on 23 December 1917. Despite the upheaval brought by the Russian Revolution, he thereafter served as a parish priest in Tiflis (Tbilisi) and then as pastor of the city's Armenian Catholic community from 1919. He left for Rome in 1921, after the Democratic Republic of Georgia was invaded by the Red Army. He later said he was not confined by the Bolsheviks as "they had many other things to do."
In late 1921, Agagianian became a faculty member and assistant rector of the Pontifical Armenian College in Rome. He later served as rector of the college from 1932 to 1937. He was also a faculty member of the Pontifical Urban University from 1922 to 1932. Agagianian was appointed titular bishop of Comana di Armenia on 11 July 1935, and was ordained bishop on 21 July 1935, at the San Nicola da Tolentino Church in Rome. His episcopal motto was Iustitia et Pax ("Justice and Peace").
Armenian Catholic Patriarch On 30 November 1937, Agagianian was elected Patriarch of Cilicia by the synod of bishops of the Armenian Catholic Church, an Eastern particular church sui iuris of the Catholic Church. The election received Papal assent on 13 December 1937. He took the name Gregory Peter (; Armenian: Krikor Bedros) and became the 15th patriarch of the Armenian Catholic Church, which had 50,000 to 100,000 adherents. All Armenian Catholic Patriarchs have Peter (Petros/Bedros) in their pontifical name as an expression of allegiance to the church founded by Saint Peter.
According to Rouben Paul Adalian, the Armenian Catholic Church regained its stature in the Armenian diaspora under the "astute management" of Agagianian following the sizable losses in the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire. As patriarch, he had immediate ecclesiastical jurisdiction over around 18,000 Catholic Armenians in Lebanon. Agagianian reportedly played a key role in keeping the Armenian-populated village of Kessab within Syria when Turkey annexed the Hatay State in 1939 by intervening as a representative of the Vatican.
According to historian Felix Corley, "One of the fiercest opponents of Communist rule in Armenia was the head of the Armenian Catholic community in Lebanon, Cardinal Bedros (Peter) Agagianian. In successive pastoral letters Agagianian attacked the Communists' record and spoke of the 'bitter reality and material misery' in Soviet Armenia." Felix Corley (1996), Religion in the Soviet Union: An Archival Reader, New York University Press. Page 174.
In 1950, Agagianian published a new pastoral letter in the journal Avetik in which he accused the Armenian Apostolic Church of breaking with its own past by rejecting the Council of Chalcedon and embracing what he termed the heresy of Miaphysitism. Agagianian also alleged, "The Catholic Armenian Apostolic Church is the only preserver of the holy faith and rites of our ancestors including Gregory the Illuminator." Felix Corley (1996), Religion in the Soviet Union: An Archival Reader, New York University Press. Pages 175-175.
According to Felix Corley, opposition to Agagianian and his pastoral letter caused a rare moment of unity between the two divided factions of the Armenian Apostolic Church. Followers of both Kevork VI, the Pro-Soviet Catholicos of Etchmiadzin and Karekin I, the anti-communist and Armenian nationalist Catholicos of Cilicia in Antelias, finally, "had something to agree on in their condemnation of Agagianian". Among many other things, Agagianian was accused by Oriental Orthodox clergy of being "self-appointed" and having no lawful spiritual authority over the Armenian people. It is very telling, however, that "even on such a key matter", Catholicos-Patriarch Kevork VI had to file a written request with the Council of Ministers of the Armenian SSR and, "had to depend on the[ir] goodwill", even to be allowed to see the full text of Agagianian's pastoral letter. Felix Corley (1996), Religion in the Soviet Union: An Archival Reader, New York University Press. Pages 174-175.
Agagianian inaugurated the Armenian Catholic church in Anjar, Lebanon in 1954, and founded a boarding house for orphaned boys there. He resigned the pastoral governance of the Armenian patriarchate on 25 August 1962, to focus on his duties at the Vatican.
Cardinal Agagianian was made a cardinal on 18 February 1946, by Pope Pius XII. He was appointed Cardinal-Priest of San Bartolomeo all'Isola on 22 February 1946. Pope Pius, who had a "great interest in the Eastern churches", called on Agagianian to celebrate a pontifical Mass in the Armenian rite in the Sistine Chapel on 12 March 1946. Herbert Matthews noted that it was Pope Pius's "desire to emphasize the universality of the Catholic Church". Held in commemoration of the seventh anniversary of the Pope's coronation, it was the "first time any but the Latin rite has been used in the Sistine Chapel". Pius named him a member of the Holy Office in June 1958.
Prefect of Propaganda Fide
Agagianian was appointed Pro-Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith (Propaganda Fide) on 18 June 1958, by Pope Pius. Paul Hofmann of The New York Times wrote that Agagianian, an expert on communism and on Middle Eastern problems, was appointed because he "appeared particularly qualified to combat the danger of Communist inroads in missionary areas in the Middle East, Africa and all Asia". He assumed the post on 23 June at a "simple ceremony". He became Prefect of the Congregation on 18 July 1960.
The Congregation, under his direction, controlled 25,000 missionary priests, 10,000 missionary lay brothers and more than 60,000 missionary nuns worldwide. He had a staff of 27 and his jurisdiction included some 31 million Catholics, 3 million catechumens in 78 archdioceses, 197 apostolic vicariates, 114 prefectures, six independent abbeys, and three independent missions. He supervised the training of Catholic missionaries all over the world. According to Lentz, Agagianian was "largely responsible for liberalizing the church's policies in developing nations".
Agagianian moved to live in Rome permanently in 1958, but he travelled extensively to the missionary areas for which he was responsible. On 10 December 1958, Agagianian presided over the First Far East Conference of Bishops at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila, the Philippines, with an attendance of 100 prelates, 10 papal representatives, 16 archbishops, 79 bishops from almost every country in the Far East. (archived) He was Pope John's official representative at the 8 December ceremony for the consecration of the reconstructed Manila Cathedral.
In February 1959, Agagianian visited Taiwan to oversee missionary work on the island. He later entrusted Archbishop Paul Yü Pin to reestablish the Fu Jen Catholic University there. He arrived in Japan for a two-week long visit in May 1959, which included a meeting with Emperor Hirohito. His visit to Ireland in June 1961 was the highlight of the Patrician Year, when the 1,500th anniversary of Saint Patrick, Ireland's patron saint, was celebrated. Agagianian received a great popular welcome there."I remember Cardinal Agagianian. I remember when he came to visit Ireland. The people gave him a great welcome." – According to journalist Gerard O'Connell who conducted interviews for the following book: Fianna Fáil President of Ireland Éamon de Valera was famously pictured kissing Agagianian's ring. Agagianian celebrated a pontifical high mass in Dublin's Croke Park attended by more than 90,000 people.
In September 1963, Agagianian met with Madame Nhu, the Catholic first lady of South Vietnam, in Rome. On 18 October 1964, when the Uganda Martyrs were canonized by Pope Paul VI, Agagianian presided over the Holy Mass at Namugongo. In November 1964 he traveled to Bombay, India to open the 38th Eucharistic Congress. It was attended by more than 200 cardinals and bishops.
Second Vatican Council Agagianian sat on the Board of Presidency of the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II), which took place from 1962 to 1965. He was appointed by Pope Paul VI as one of the four moderators who directed the course of the debates, along with Leo Joseph Suenens, Julius Döpfner, and Giacomo Lercaro. Agagianian was the only one of these four from the Curia, and represented the Eastern Catholic Churches. He had a special role in the preparation of the missionary decree Ad gentes and Gaudium et spes, the Constitution on the Church in the Modern World.
Papal candidate As a cardinal, Agagianian participated in the papal conclaves of 1958 and 1963, during which he was considered to have been papabile. According to J. Peter Pham, Agagianian was considered a "serious (albeit unwilling) candidate" for the papacy in both conclaves. Contemporary news sources noted that Agagianian was the first serious non-Italian papal candidate in centuries.
1958 conclave