While in full communion, the Armenian Church of Cilicia is administratively independent of the Apostolic Church in Armenia.
Armenia was the first country to adopt Christianity as its state religion when King Tiridates III was converted to the Christian faith by St. Gregory the Illuminator at the beginning of the fourth century. In 506, an Armenian synod rejected the Christological teachings of the Council of Chalcedon (451), which no Armenian bishop attended.
From that time on, the Armenian Church proclaimed itself autonomous, under the jurisdiction of a patriarch who took the name Catholicós, a title that was originally attributed to the head of a Christian community outside the confines of the Roman Empire.
In December 1996, St. John Paul II and His Holiness the Catholicos of all Armenians Karekin II signed a joint declaration affirming the common origin of the Armenian Church and the Roman Catholic Church.
Who is Aram I?
His Holiness Aram I was born in Beirut, Lebanon, and studied at the Armenian Theological Seminary of Antelias and at the Ecumenical Institute of Bossey (Geneva). He has been a Catholicos of the Armenian Church of Cilicia since 1995.
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