Death of Catholicos Coadjutor Papken I (July 9, 1936)

Archbishop Papken Guleserian was one of the prolific members of the Armenian Apostolic Church in the first decades of the past century, reaching the throne of the Catholicosate of the Great House Cilicia, when death interrupted his life at the age of 68. 

He was born Harutiun Guleserian on March 5, 1868, in Aintab. After attending the local Vartanian School in 1885-1889, հe continued his studies at the Armash Seminary for the next seven years and graduated in 1896. He was ordained celibate priest in 1895, adopting the ecclesiastic name of Papken, and subsequently received the degrees of archimandrite (1896) and archimandrite superior (1897). He was a preacher in Constantinople for a year and then was appointed locum tenens of the diocese of Samsun. 

He became general abbot and locum tenens of the diocese of Daron in 1899-1900, but his activities in Mush were interrupted by the government, which imprisoned him. He lived in Constantinople under surveillance from 1900 to 1907, while the regime of Sultan Abdul Hamid rejected his election as prelate of Trebizonda (twice) and Marash. 

Very Rev. Fr. Papken Guleserian was very active in those years he spent in Constantinople, where he was a preacher at the churches of Holy Resurrection in Pera and St. Illuminator in Galatia, while he also was the chief librarian of the Armenian library in the Patriarchate. He was also teacher of Classical Armenian at the Getronagan and Berberian Schools, and founded and edited the religious weekly Luys in 1905-1906. 

After a stint at the Armash Seminary as assistant abbot and deputy dean (1907-1909), he was elected prelate of the diocese of Galatia (Ankara) (1909-1913) and consecrated bishop in 1910. 

He left his position with a yearlong leave of absence in 1913-1914, and after spending a few months in Aintab, he departed for France to find cure for his kidney condition. After the beginning of World War I, he went to the United States, where he was subjected to a successful operation. He stayed here until 1922 due to the consequences of the war. He published the weekly Davros in Boston (1918-1919). 

In 1922-1923, Bishop Guleserian went in a study visit to Europe, Egypt, Palestine, and Syria. In 1924, he established the seminary of the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem, where he remained until 1930. He taught at the seminary and resumed the publication of Sion, the organ of the Patriarchate, which had been interrupted since 1877, as its editor. 

In 1928, the elderly Catholicos Sahag I of the Great House of Cilicia designated Bishop Papken Guleserian as Catholicos Coadjutor to organize the Catholicosate of Cilicia and become his successor in time. In 1930, the newly elected coadjutor moved to Antelias, where the Seminary had been opened. He taught Classical and Modern Armenian and medieval Armenian literature. He was elevated to the rank of Archbishop in 1931. His consecration as Catholicos was held at the Holy Forty Martyrs church of Aleppo on April 26, 1931. 

Archbishop Guleserian founded a print house and gave impulse to the newly opened seminary. In 1932, he also founded Hask, the monthly organ of the Catholicosate, becoming its first editor until 1936. 

He contributed articles and studies about history of the Armenian Church, philology, ethnology, religion, and theology to many Armenian periodicals and journals. He published about two dozens of books, including seminal studies about the fifth century historian Yeghishe (1908) and the Islam in Armenian literature (1930), as well as several books on the Armenian Church, including a frequently reprinted catechism (1932). 

Unfortunately, the dynamic Catholicos Coadjutor Papken I passed away on July 9, 1936. He was buried in the nartex of the Holy Forty Martyrs Church of Aleppo. He preceded Catholicos Sahag I, who died in 1939 at the age of 90. In 1966, Catholicos Khoren I of the Great House of Cilicia ordered the transfer of the remains of Archbishop Papken Guleserian to Antelias, where they were reburied in the Zarehian mausoleum reserved to members of the brotherhood of the Catholicosate.