Ghabroyan was born in Aleppo, Syria on November 14, 1934. He was ordained a priest of the Institute of Patriarchal Clergy of Bzommar in 1959, at the age of 24. In 1977 he was ordained a bishop and appointed the Armenian Apostolic Eparch of France.
He stepped down as the Armenian Eparch of France in 2013, but came out of retirement at the age of 80 after his election as patriarch on July 24, 2015.
Ghabroyan led the Armenian Catholic Church, an Eastern Catholic Church in full communion with the Pope. The Church uses the Armenian rite, and is estimated to have 1 million followers.
In Armenia, 93 percent of the population belongs to the Armenian Apostolic Church – an Oriental Orthodox Church from which the Armenian Catholic Church was formed in the 18th century.
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Ghabroyan will be buried in the cemetery reserved for Armenian patriarchs in the Convent of Our Mother of Bzommar in Lebanon.
“We commend the soul of this our brother to the Mercy of God, to whose throne, we are sure, he is accompanied by the intercessory prayers of the Mother of God Mary Most Holy, of Saint Gregory the Illuminator, and of Saint Gregory of Narek, together with all the Armenian martyrs and saints,” Pope Francis said.
Courtney Mares is a Rome Correspondent for Catholic News Agency. A graduate of Harvard University, she has reported from news bureaus on three continents and was awarded the Gardner Fellowship for her work with North Korean refugees.