ASIA/LEBANON - The canonization process of Armenian Cardinal Agagianian opens on October 28th

Bzommar (Agenzia Fides) - The appointment is for next October 28, the day on which the Armenian Churches celebrate the Apostle Saint Jude Thaddeus also as the First Catholic of the Armenians. That day, at the Vicariate Palace in Rome, the cause for the canonization of Cardinal and Patriarch Krikor Bedros Agagianian, who from 1960 to 1970 was prefect of the Congregation of Propaganda Fide, will be officially inaugurated. The confirmation of the beginning of the canonization process was communicated to the bishops of the Patriarchal Church of Cilicia of the Armenians, gathered for their annual Synod from August 17 to 22 in Lebanon, at the Patriarchal Monastery of Our Lady of Bzoummar under the presidency of Patriarch Raphaël Bedros XXI Minassian.
Previously (see Fides, 14/2/2022), the Synod of Armenian Catholic Bishops had undertaken the search for testimonies and useful material so that the various phases of the canonization process, once started, continue without delay. Among other things, it was also decided to start writing useful studies to reconstruct the biography of Cardinal Agagianian, according to the appropriate historiographical parameters. On February 4, 2020, the Vicariate of Rome - the city where Cardinal Agagianian died and is buried - had published the edict in which it recognized its intention to initiate, at the request of the Armenian Catholic Patriarchate, the investigation aimed at verifying the conditions for the formal start of the canonization process.
The edict asked all those interested to collect and submit to the diocesan Tribunal all the material - from the writings of Agagianian himself – to submit it to a preliminary study and then send it to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints to formalize the request. official opening of the canonization process. Ghazaros Agagianian, born in Akhaltsikhe (in present-day Georgia) in September 1895, played a leading role in the affairs of the Church of Rome during the decades before and after the Second Vatican Council. In November 1937 he was elected Patriarch of Cilicia of the Armenians, with the name of Krikor Bedros (Gregory Peter) XV. On February 18, 1946 he was created a Cardinal by Pope Pius XII. From July 18, 1960 to October 19, 1970, Cardinal Agagianian was Prefect of the Sacred Congregation De Propaganda Fide which assumed the name of Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples on August 15, 1967. Cardinal Agagianian, who had renounced the patriarchal title in 1962, died on May 16, 1971 in Rome, where he is buried in the church of San Nicola da Tolentino. In recent decades, the grateful memory of the figure of Cardinal Agagianian has remained alive among the Armenian Catholic communities, as confirmed by the news collected by abouna.org of the recent inauguration of a statue dedicated to him in the Armenian Catholic Church of St. Michael, in the Syrian city of Kessab (Province of Lattakia). (GV) (Agenzia Fides, 29/8/2022)

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