Biography of Monsignor Vartan Kirakos (Kazanjian)
Monsignor Vartan Kirakos (Kazanjian) was born on May 24, 1967, in Beirut.
In 1983, he entered the Armenian Catholic Seminary, affiliated with the Bzommar Patriarchal Clerical Institute in Lebanon. Between 1986 and 1991, he pursued his academic education in Philosophy and Theology in Rome at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas ("San Tommaso"), run by the Dominicans.
Upon his return to Lebanon, he continued his preparatory studies in Armenology at Haigazian University in Beirut. Following this preparatory year, he was ordained as a priest and member of the Bzommar Patriarchal Clerical Institute on April 26, 1992, by the Armenian Catholic Patriarch Hovhannes Bedros XVIII Kasparian.
Early Ministries and Academic Specialization
He carried out his first pastoral mission at the Armenian Catholic Cathedral in Damascus for two years. In 1994, he was appointed by the Roman Congregation for the Oriental Churches as the vice-rector (or director) of the Pontifical Armenian College. During the same period, he attended a formation course at the Pontifical Salesian University in Rome. Alongside these duties, he spent four years completing his licentiate in liturgy and ecclesiastical sciences at the Faculty of Ecclesiastical Sciences of the Jesuit-run Pontifical Oriental Institute (P.I.O.).
Following his four-year service in Rome, he was appointed rector of the Armenian Catholic Seminary in Aleppo in 1998. In 2001, during the General Assembly of the Bzommar Patriarchal Clerical Institute, he was elected to the General Council, assuming the roles of General Secretary and head of cultural affairs for a six-year term.
Pastoral, Academic, and Editorial Works
In 2007, he was assigned to the Armenian Catholic Patriarchate of Beirut, while simultaneously studying Eastern Liturgies at the Institute of Liturgy at the Holy Spirit University of Kaslik (USEK), run by the Lebanese Maronite Order. He obtained his master’s degree in Liturgy in 2015.
During this period, he served as the director of "Avedik," the official periodical of the Armenian Catholic Patriarchate, headed the Patriarchate's social communications office, and served as the secretary to the late Patriarch Nerses Bedros XIX.
In 2010, with the blessing of Patriarch Nerses Bedros XIX, he founded the "Surp Grigor Narekatsi" (St. Gregory of Narek) Cultural Center. For five years, through this center, he directed programs on Armenian and Christian education in Armenian Catholic schools in Lebanon. Between 2010 and 2014, he published six volumes of the Armenian educational journal "The Armenian Educator" (Հայ Մանկավարժ).
Starting in 2012, he began teaching at the Bzommar Armenian Monastic Seminary in Lebanon. He currently continues to lecture on introduction to Armenian liturgy at the Holy Spirit University of Kaslik.
Mission in Turkey and Current Leadership
In 2016, he was assigned to serve at the Surp Hovhan Vosgeperan Armenian Catholic Church within the Armenian Catholic Archeparchy (Archdiocese) of Istanbul and Turkey. That same year, he was elevated to the rank of archimandrite (varkabed / üst rahip).
He was appointed Vicar General in 2023. Following the resignation of His Eminence Archbishop Levon Zekiyan on January 4, 2024, he was appointed Patriarchal Administrator and Spiritual Leader of the Armenian Catholic Community of Istanbul and Turkey. Although the Archeparchial see currently remains vacant, he continues to carry out this governance.
May 2026