The 1955 election of Vazken I as head of the Armenian Church initiated the return of the Catholicos of All Armenians to the diasporan stage. During World War II, Stalin had made concessions to national churches in order to bolster Soviet patriotism. After his death in 1953, the Communist lead¬ership maintained this conciliatory stance, calling an end to the persecution of the clergy, although it also put all religious institutions under the tutelage of a state agency. According to the former head of state security in Armenia, Colonel Suren Hovhannisian, who also served as the first president of the Committee for Armenian Apostolic Church Affairs, the process of choosing a successor for the late Catholicos Kevork VI lasted much longer than expected because the choice of a new Catholicos had to be approved by the Politburo of the Communist Party. This attests the political importance that the Soviet leadership attached to the post.40 It seems safe to assume that rehabilitation of the Catholicosate as an in-stitution was the fruit of a compromise between the Soviet Armenian leadership and Moscow; the Armenians no doubt succeeded in convincing the Kremlin that the move would give Soviet Armenia greater weight in the diaspora while counteracting the growing importance of the Catholicosate of Cilicia, on which the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) kept a watchful eye. Accounts such as the one given by Karlen Dallakian, president of the Committee for Church Affairs from 1963 to 1970, indicate that Armenian Communist leaders were well dis-posed toward the Catholicos throughout the period in which Yakov Zarobian and his successor, Anton Kochinian, headed the Armenian Communist Party.41 Almost as soon as he was elected, the new Catholicos went on a series of much ... Read all
The AGBU and the Holy See in Echmiadzin
H.H. Catholicos Vazken I shortly after his election in 1955 (Arch. B. Nubar/Paris).
Catholicos Vazken I, accompanied by Alex Manoogian, on a visit to New York
(Arch. AGBU/New York).