Khoren I of Armenia

Choirs I of Armenia (Armenian Խորեն Ա Տփղիսեցի Մուրադբեկյան XORen Muradbēkean; civil Aleksandr Hovhannes Muradbekjan Ալեքսանդր Հովհաննեսի Մուրադբեկյան, born December 8, 1873 in Tiflis, Russian Empire, † April 6, 1938 in Echmiadzin, Armenian SSR) between 1932 and 1938, the Catholicos of the Armenian Apostolic Church and the total victims of the Great Terror under Joseph Stalin. He is buried in the Mother Cathedral of Holy Etchmiadzin -.

Life

Choirs attended the Nersesian Academy in Tbilisi and taught there. After the death of Catholicos Gework V. on May 9, 1930, the Patriarchate of the Armenian Apostolic Church remained vacant under the pressure of Soviet dictator Stalin for two years. When the government attacks on the Church, however temporarily stopped in order to improve relations with the Soviet Union to the Armenian Diaspora, Alexander Muradbekyan was " the Catholicos of All Armenians His Holiness " appointed on 10 November 1932.

With the onset of the Great Purges in the late 1930s, the Soviet government in 1935 was again manifest their anti-clerical attitude. After only six years in office, Catholicos choirs was strangled on April 6, 1938 by agents of the NKVD. In the wake of his assassination, the Catholicos of Echmiadzin was closed on August 4, 1938 by the communist authorities, the church lived only in the underground and in the Diaspora continue.

This time, the seat remained vacant for seven years until 1945.