The Quiet Armenian

Religion

One of the youngest, most brilliant and most cosmopolitan cardinals moved into a strategic Vatican post last week. The post: proprefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, the job in which Chicago's late Cardinal Stritch never had a chance to serve (TIME, June 9). The cardinal: Russian-born Gregory Peter XV Agagianian, patriarch of Cilicia of the Armenians, the church's top expert on Russian affairs, and often mentioned as a future Pope.

"This Small Boy." Lazarus Agagianian (pronounced ah-gah-jahn-yan) was born 62 years ago in what is now Soviet Georgia, is a member of the Uniate group of Armenian Christians.* Agagianian was so bright as a child that his instructors in Tiflis sent him to Rome when he was only eleven to study at the Urban College of the Propagation of the Faith. The college rejected him because of his youth, but before he was sent home little Lazarus was permitted to join a group audience with St. Pope Pius X (canonized in 1954), who noticed him and predicted: "This small Armenian boy will render great services to the church." Lazarus was allowed to enter the college after all.

At 22, he was ordained priest, and two years later went back to Russia, then in the throes of the revolution, where he served two years as pastor in Tiflis. One day he met an old woman named Djuga-shvili, who told him proudly: "My son once studied for the priesthood, too." Her son's other name: Stalin.

Recalled to Rome in 1921, Father Agagianian became vice rector (later rector) of the Pontifical Armenian College. He added to his store of languages--he is now fluent in eleven, including English, Russian, French, German. Italian, Latin, classical Greek and Hebrew, and understands, but does not speak Arabic.

No More Stovepipe. In 1937 he became patriarch of the 120,000 Armenian Roman Catholics scattered throughout the Middle East. As patriarch he took the name Gregory Peter XV. Nine years later Pope Pius XII gave him a red hat, and as cardinal he continued administering the affairs of the Armenians, shuttling between Rome and his residence in Beirut.

In his new job, quiet, witty Cardinal Agagianian will give up his patriarchate and replace the brimless stovepipe headgear of a patriarch with a simple biretta. But with his special experience in Russian affairs and in the intricate network of relationships in the Communist-infiltrated Middle East, his new position at the helm of the Roman Catholic missionary movement makes him one of the most potent and important men in the Vatican. Last week the Pope conferred a further honor on Cardinal Agagianian--naming him to the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office, most important of the Holy See's twelve administrative bodies, whose prefect is the Pope himself.

*For whom Pope Benedict XIV established a separate patriarchical see in 1742. This group is one of nine Eastern churches which differ in liturgy from Latin rite Catholics but are in communion with Rome in all matters of faith and morals. The other Eastern rites: Byzantine, Alexandrian, Antiochian, Chaldean.

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