Grégoire-Pierre Agagianian

Gregorio Pietro Agagianian (born Ghazaros Aghajanian; known in French as Grégoire-Pierre Agagianian) was an Armenian Catholic prelate of the twentieth century, cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, and head of the Armenian Catholic Church as Patriarch of Cilicia of the Armenians. He was born on 18 September 1895 in Akhaltsikhe, in the Caucasus, then within the Tiflis Governorate of the Russian Empire, to an Armenian family of the Catholic faith. As a youth of marked ability he was sent to Rome and formed at the Pontifical Urban College of Propaganda Fide. He was ordained a priest on 23 December 1917. In the following years he combined pastoral service among Armenian Catholics with academic work; in 1932 he became rector of the Pontifical Armenian College in Rome, the principal house of formation for Armenian Catholic clergy in the city of the popes.

On 11 July 1935 he was appointed titular bishop of Comana in Armenia and received episcopal consecration later that month. When the patriarchal see of Cilicia of the Armenians became vacant, the synod of the Armenian Catholic Church elected him patriarch on 30 November 1937. He took the name Gregory Peter XV (Grégoire-Pierre XV). The Holy See confirmed the election, and he thereby became the hierarchical head of the Armenian Catholic Church, a church sui iuris in full communion with Rome whose faithful were dispersed through the Middle East, notably Lebanon and Syria, as well as in Europe and the wider diaspora. The patriarchate was historically associated with Cilicia and, in modern times, with residences and institutions in Lebanon, especially Bzommar, while remaining closely tied to Rome.

Pope Pius XII created him cardinal-priest in the consistory of 18 February 1946, with the title of San Bartolomeo all'Isola. Agagianian thus became one of the most visible Eastern Catholic members of the College of Cardinals. He was widely regarded as papabile in the conclave of 1958 after the death of Pius XII and again in 1963 after the death of John XXIII. Contemporary reportage and later historical discussion indicate that he received a substantial body of votes, a reflection of his reputation for learning, linguistic range, prudence, and curial experience, and of a broader willingness to consider a non-Italian or Eastern candidate. From 1958 he served as pro-prefect, and from 1960 as prefect, of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, the Roman department charged with the Church’s missions. In that office he directed worldwide missionary activity during decolonization and during the preparation and aftermath of the Second Vatican Council, in which he took a prominent part as a council father and as a leading curial cardinal.

In 1962 he resigned the patriarchate in order to give himself wholly to his Roman duties; he was succeeded by Ignatius Peter XVI Batanian. He remained prefect of Propaganda Fide until 1970. Cardinal Agagianian died in Rome on 16 May 1971. He was buried at the church of San Nicola da Tolentino in Rome, the national church of the Armenians in the city. He is remembered as the outstanding Armenian Catholic churchman of his generation, as a major figure of the Roman Curia in the mid-twentieth century, and as a representative of the Eastern churches in communion with Rome at the time of the Second Vatican Council. He was never elected Bishop of Rome, nor was he patriarch of an Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Coptic, or Church of the East see; his patriarchal office belonged to the Armenian Catholic Church.