Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Grégoire-Pierre Agagianian

Prelate of the Armenian Catholic Church. He served as Patriarch of Cilicia from 1937 to 1962, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1946 by Pope Pius XII.

During the 1958 papal conclave he received a large number of votes, eventually approaching the majority needed for election as was confirmed by the elected pope himself, John XXIII, who appointed Cardinal Agagianian to be a member of the leading body of the Second Vatican Council together with Cardinals Suenens, Döpfner and Lercaro.

Agagianian was Pro-Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith from 1958 and full Prefect from July 18, 1960 to October 19, 1970. He died in Rome on May 16, 1971.


In St. Peter's

As papal legate to the Eucharistic Congress in Bombay, 1964. I love the photographer mosh-pit bottom right.

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