Armenians in Italy - History - Cardinal Krikor Bedros Aghajanian and The Vatican

Cardinal Krikor Bedros Aghajanian and The Vatican

The Georgian-born Cardinal Grégoire-Pierre Agagianian (Krikor Bedros Aghajanian (Armenian: Գրիգոր Պետրոս Աղաճանեան) (September 18, 1895—May 16, 1971) was a leading prelate of the Armenian Catholic Church. He served as Patriarch Catholicos of Cilicia for Armenian Catholics from 1937 to 1962, and Prefect of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith (Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples) in the Roman Curia from 1958 to 1970. Agagianian was elevated to the cardinalate in 1946 by Pope Pius XII.

Cardinal Agagianian was born in Akhaltsikhe (in modern Georgia), he studied at the seminary in Tbilisi and the Pontifical Urbaniana University in Rome. He was ordained as a priest on December 23, 1917. He entered the teaching Faculty of the Pontifical Armenian College in Rome in 1921; he became later the Rector of the same college from 1932 to 1937. Appointed Titular Bishop of Comana on July 11, 1935, he was elected Patriarch Catholicos of Cilicia of All Armenians by the Armenian Catholic Synod, on November 30, 1937, with the name of Gregory Peter XV. On February 18, 1946 he was elevated to the College of Cardinals by Pope Pius XII.

During the 1958 papal conclave, following the death of Pius XII, Agagianian received a large number of votes, eventually approaching the majority needed for election. This was confirmed by the elected pope himself, Pope John XXIII. The newly-elected pope John XXIII appointed Cardinal Agagianian to be a member of the leading body of the Second Vatican Council together with Cardinals Leo Joseph Suenens, Julius Döpfner and Giacomo Lercaro. Aghajanian was Pro-Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith from 1958 and full Prefect from July 18, 1960 to October 19, 1970. He died in Rome on May 16, 1971.