Education
A native of Romania, he began his career as a philosopher, before becoming a Doctor of Theology and a member of the local Armenian clergy.
A native of Romania, he began his career as a philosopher, before becoming a Doctor of Theology and a member of the local Armenian clergy.
Vazgen I led the Armenian Church during the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and was the first Catholicos in newly independent Armenia. Vazgen was born in Bucharest to a family belonging to the Armenian-Romanian community. His father was a shoemaker and his mother was a schoolteacher.
The young Levon Baljian did not initially pursue the Church as a profession, instead graduating from the University of Bucharest"s Faculty of Philosophy and Letters.
After graduation, he became a philosopher and published a series of scholarly articles As his interests began to shift from philosophy to theology, Baljian studied Armenian Apostolic Theology and Divinity in Athens, Greece.
He would reign until his death in 1994. During his long time as Catholicos, he managed to assert some independence for his church in face of the totalitarian Soviet rule in the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic, and lived to see religious freedom restored under Armenia"s national government in 1991.
From then on, he was very busy renewing ancient Armenian churches and reviving institutions of the church.
He saved a number of church treasures by establishing the Alex Manoogian Museum of the Mother Church. He died on August 18, 1994, after suffering from a long-term illness.