Patriarch Minassian, 75, became the 21st Catholicos-Patriarch of Cilicia of Armenian Catholics in September 2021.
He succeeded Patriarch Gregory Peter XX Ghabroyan, who died in May 2021 at the age of 86.
The Armenian Catholic Church is one of 23 Eastern Catholic Churches in full communion with Rome. It has more than 700,000 members worldwide.
Before his election as patriarch, Minassian served as the bishop of Armenian Catholics in Eastern Europe since 2011.
He was born to an Armenian family in Lebanon on Oct. 24, 1946. He was ordained in 1973 in Beirut as a priest of the Patriarchal Congregation of Bzommar, an Armenian Catholic religious congregation of priests founded in 1750.
From 1990 to 2006, he served as a pastor in California, where he helped to create a foundation supporting humanitarian projects in Armenia. He also initiated the construction of St. Gregory the Illuminator Armenian Catholic Church in Glendale.
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