Armenian patriarch, Karekin I, dies

His Holiness Karekin I, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians of the Holy See of Etchmiadzin, Armenia, died June 29 at the age of 66.

From 1975-83 Karekin I was vice-moderator of the WCC Central Committee. At the fourth assembly of the WCC in Uppsala 1968 he was elected to the council’s Central and Executive Committees. He also served on the WCC’s Faith and Order Commission. Born in August 1932 in Kessab, an Armenian village in northern Syria, he was baptized Nishan Sarkissian. In 1995 he was elected Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians of the Holy See of Etchmiadzin, Armenia.