Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan participated in the luncheon given in honor of the canonization of Archbishop Ignatius Maloyan.
It was given on behalf of His Holiness Raphael Petros II (21st), Catholicos Patriarch of the Catholicos House of Cilicia.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun also attended the luncheon.
* * *
Ignatius Maloyan was born on April 8, 1869, in Mardin (Ottoman Empire). In 1883, the parish priest, noticing signs of a priestly vocation in the fourteen-year-old Maloyan, sent him to the Monastery of the Holy Mother of God in Zmmar, Lebanon. In 1896, Maloyan completed his higher education, was ordained a priest in the Zmmar Monastery, and joined the Zmmar Patriarchal Clergy Order, receiving the name Ignatius.
From 1897 to 1910, Father Ignatius served as a parish priest in Alexandria and Cairo.
On October 22, 1911, the Synod of Bishops convened in Rome and elected him Archbishop of Mardin.
On October 7, 2001, His Holiness Pope John Paul II beatified Archbishop Ignatius Maloyan in a solemn ceremony. The first part of the ceremony was performed in the Armenian rite, which was conducted by the Armenian Catholicos Patriarch of Cilicia, Nerses-Petros XIX.
Pope Francis signed a document on the canonization of Archbishop Ignatius Maloyan on March 28, 2025.
