Karekin II Kazanjian of Constantinople

Who was Karekin II Kazanjian of Constantinople?

Archbishop Karekin II Kazanjian, was the 83rd Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople under the authority of the Catholicos of Armenia and of all Armenians.

Archbishop Karekin was born Petros Kazancıyan in 1927 in Istanbul. Young Petros attended Levon Vartuhiyan School in Topkapı, İstanbul and then the Bezaziyan and Getronagan schools. In October 1940 he was accepted as a seminarian in the Patriarchal Seminary of the St. James Brotherhood in Jerusalem.

In 1945 he was ordained a deacon and on January 22, 1950, he was elevated to the priesthood by Archbishop Mampre Sirounian, the Primate of Egypt.

From 1946 to 1949, Father Karekin was the Assistant Dean of the Seminary of Jerusalem; he also taught at the Seminary as well as at the Tarkmançats School until 1951. For two years, he was the Chancellor of the Holy See of Jerusalem, the second Chairman of the General Assembly of the Brotherhood, and also a member of the Executive Council.

Responding to an invitation by Archbishop Karekin Khachadourian, Patriarch of the Armenians in Turkey, Father Karekin returned to Istanbul in December 1951 to accept the position of Dean of the planned Holy Cross Seminary. Until the formal opening of the Seminary, which took place in January 1954, he taught at the Getronagan and Bezjian secondary schools and served as the Dean of classes for the preparation of priests at the Patriarchate. On the day of the opening of the Holy Cross Seminary, he received the rank of Dzayrakuyn Vartabed, supreme doctorate of Christian dogma, from Patriarch Karekin I. At this institution, he continued to teach classical and modern Armenian literature and served as Dean until July 1959.