New Primate Appointed for Armenian Orthodox Diocese of Artik

August 2015

By Pontifical Order of His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians, Very Rev. Fr. Archimandrite Narek Avagyan was assigned to serve as a Locum Tenens of the Artik Diocese of the Armenian Church.

Archimandrite Narek Avagyan
(Biography)

Archimandrite Narek Avagyan was born on August 12, 1979, in the village of Oshakan, in the Aragatsotn region of Armenia. He received his primary and secondary education at the Mesrop Mashtots school of Oshakan, studying from 1986 to 1996

In 1996, he entered the Gevorkian Theological Seminary at the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, graduating in 2002.

On December 25, 2001, the Feast of St. Stephen the Protodeacon, he was ordained to the diaconate by His Grace Bishop Mikael Ajapahyan, Primate of the Shirak Diocese at the St. Gregory the Illuminator Mother Cathedral of Yerevan.

On 06 July of 2002 by Pontifical Order of His Holiness he was appointed to serve as a sacristan in the Mother Cathedral of Holy Etchmiadzin. From 2002 to 2003 he served as a secretary in the Finance Department of the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin. From February 10 of 2003 to 09 December of 2005 he served as a supervisor in the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin.

On May 26, 2003 he successfully defended his graduate thesis ‘’ Synoptic Gospels’ Locution Components in the Armenian Translation’’.

On August 31, 2003, Feast of the Discovery of the Belt of Holy Mother of God, he was ordained as a celibate priest by His Eminence Archbishop Shahan Svajyan, and given the priestly name of Narek.

On 09 December of 2005 he left Armenia and was appointed to serve as the spiritual pastor of Abkhazia.

Returning to Armenia, he was re-appointed to serve as a supervisor at the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin on April 28 of 2006.

From 01 November of 2006 to 01 March of 2007 he served as Dean of the Baptistery of the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin.

He departed the Mother See in 2007 to serve as the abbot of the Khor Virap Monastery.

He returned to the Mother See on 01 March of 2013, and was appointed to serve as a Director of the Nersisyan Forest Childrens’ Playground of the Mother See.

On 05 October of 2013 he defended his Doctoral Thesis titled ‘’ Burial Sevice according to the scriputre and printed Mashtots (Liturgical book) in the XVI-XVII centuries and national traditions’’. On October 11 of 2013 at the St. Mesrop Mashtots church of Oshakan village he received the rank of Archimandrite (Vardapet) by His Grace Bishop Mikael Ajapahyan, Primate of the Shirak Diocese.

He left Armenia in November of 2013, and by Pontifical Order of His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians, was assigned to serve as a spiritual pastor in the Armenian Diocese of Iraq.

On 01 December 2014 he was appointed to serve at the Gevorkian Theological Seminary as a Senior Assistant and Teacher.

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