Even though the majority of the world’s Armenians belong to the Armenian Apostolic Church, there is a community of Armenian Catholics and not many know that in two occasions an Armenian was almost chosen as the Bishop of Rome, as the Pope of the Catholic Church. Here is his story.

On September 18, 1895, in Akhaltsikhe (currently in the Samtskhe-Javakheti region of Georgia) a son named Ghazaros was born in the household of Harutyun Aghajanian. The Armenian ancestors of the Aghajanians had moved to Akhaltsikhe from the Armenian city of Karin, the present-day city of Erzurum in Turkey. Akhaltsikhe is home to a sizable Armenian Catholic community. When Ghazaros was still a child his father passed away and he was left to the care of his mother, Isguhi. The perish school at the local Catholic church was located near their home so little Ghazaros was sent there to become literate.

Later after studying at the Tiflis Seminary, young Ghazaros was given the opportunity to continue his studies at the Pontifical Urbino University in Rome where in 1917 at the age of 22 he becomes ordained as a priest.

In 1919 he returned to Tiflis to serve and educate among his people; however, the Caucasus of 1919 was not the Caucasus he had left. The Russian Revolution and the fall of the Empire had triggered a chain of events which would bring the Bolsheviks into power, reform the empire into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics which waged an ideological war against faith and the church.

Following Red Army’s invasion of Georgia, young Ghazaros, who after his ordination had taken the name Francesco, once again moved back to Rome, this time in order to begin working at the Pontifical Armenian College as a lecturer. Due to his knowledge and close relationship with the Roman curia Aghajanian maintained his position as a lecturer for the next decade and in 1935 at the age of 40 was ordained as the bishop of Comana di Armenia, the diocese which roughly covered the area of Western Armenia or present-day Eastern Turkey.

Then in 1937 when the seat of the Patriarch of Cilicia, the head of the Armenian Catholic Church became vacant, Aghajanian, as a rising star within the Catholic hierarchy, seemed like the perfect candidate. In December of 1937 he was confirmed by the Pope to become the leader of world’s Armenian Catholics and took the name Gregory Peter XV (Գրիգոր Պետրոս ԺԵ). Traditionally all Armenian patriarchs of Cilicia after confirmation have taken the middle name Peter in homage to the apostle Peter who is regarded as the founder of the Catholic Church and many have taken the first name Gregory as in equal homage to St Gregory the Illuminator, who baptized Armenians into Christianity and founded the Armenian Church in 301 AD.

However, this was not the end of his rise since in 1946; he was made a Cardinal by the then-Pope Pius XII and became only the second Armenian in the history of the Catholic Church to rise to the rank of a cardinal.

In 1958 Pope Pius XII died and Aghajanian, at the time already one of the leaders of the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, participated in the conclave for the election of the next pope.

Aghajanian had been favored as a successor even by Pius XII himself and in the first three rounds of the voting received more votes than Angelo Roncalli who eventually became elected as Pope John XXIII. The reason why Aghajanian did not receive the final vote was because he was not Italian and the cardinals felt that the Church was not yet ready for a non-Italian pope and also for some reason they believed that at age 63 Aghajanian was still a bit young for the Papacy.

Aghajanian continued his work at the college and in 1960 already became the head of the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith tasked with preparing the global missionary work of the church and as a result traveled extensively throughout the world. The schedule had put a heavy strain on his health and had constrained his time so he felt that he was not devoting enough attention to his duties as the Patriarch of the Armenian Catholics. For that reason in 1962 he resigned from that post while still staying committed to the Armenian community and its educational and religious affairs within the Holy See.

Meanwhile Pope John XXIII who was already advanced in years and not in great health; did not reign long and died in 1963, only after 5 years of leading the Holy See. Another conclave was called upon to elect a new pope and Aghajanian was once again considered a Papabile or a potential candidate for the seat of St Peter.

The conclave of 1963 was taking place in the middle of the Second Vatican Council which was about to approve major changes to the Catholic Doctrine and according to the testimonies of cardinals present at the conclave and other documents the goal of the electors was to pick a pope who would stay true to John XXIII’s path. According to many rumors Aghajanian and another favorite, Cardinal Siri of Genoa had both at one point or another gathered the votes necessary to become pope however were not able to secure the consent of the conclave which in the end picked the Archbishop of Milan Giovanni Battista Montini as the new Pope Paul VI.

Aghajanian had once again been snubbed from the opportunity to be the leader of the universal church, but still continued to work in Rome for another decade, until his death from cancer in 1971.

Clearly at the time the Italian cardinals of the Catholic Church were not ready to relinquish their primary position to an outsider and only in 1978 elected the Polish Karol Józef Wojtyła as Pope John Paul II, the first non-Italian pope since 1522.

Aghajanian was no longer alive to see that day, but he has left his own mark on history as a gifted linguist, able scholar of the Soviet affairs and a man devoted to service to his church and to his people for almost a half a century.