Fr. Ghazar Bedrossian

Fr. Ghazar Bedrossian Assumes Pastorship of Holy Cross Armenian Catholic Church of Belmont

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He declared, “I have a mission in Boston: to serve the Armenian community, from the eldest one to the oldest one. As Saint Mother Theresa of Calcutta once said: ‘Not all of us can do great things. but we can do small things with great love’.”

On October 23, 2010, during the synod for Middle Eastern Churches in the Vatican, Fr. Ghazar Bedrossian was an assistant for the synod. On the last day Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, prefect of the Oriental Churches Congregation, asked him to sing in front of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. After he did it, Fr. Ghazar said they started to call him the Armenian Pavarotti.

Fr. Ghazar was born in Aleppo, Syria, in 1985. He attended the Armenian Catholic Sisters’ Zvartnots School, and after graduating from the Mekhitarist School of that city he went to Bzommar, Lebanon, in 2000 to continue his secondary education. He received his high school diploma in 2006.

This photo was taken on April 9, 2015, during the meeting of the Armenian Catholic Synod bishops with Patriarch Nerses Bedros XIX Tarmouni, Catholicos-Patriarch of the Armenian Catholics of Cilicia, which was an official visit to thank Pope Francis for presiding over the Centenary Holy Mass for the Armenian Genocide on April 12, 2015

He studied philosophy at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Acquinas (Angelicum) in Rome, following which he studied theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University of the same city, graduating in 2011. Finally, he received a master’s degree in marriage and family from the University of Sagesse in Beirut in 2022. Along the way, he learned to speak five languages — Armenian, English, Turkish, Italian and Arabic.

Fr. Ghazar Bedrossian, at left, with Nerses Bedros XIX Tarmouni, Catholicos-Patriarch of the Armenian Catholics of Cilicia, during the Holy Mass of the Armenian Genocide centenary in the Vatican on April 12, 2015. It was presided over by Pope Francis. At that time, Fr. Ghazar was the Secretary of the Patriarch.

After his priestly ordination in 2013 as a member of the Armenian Catholic Patriarchal Clergy Institute of Bzommar, he went to serve as assistant pastor at St. Savior’s Armenian Catholic Church of Bourdj Hammoud, Lebanon until 2019. Afterwards, he served as assistant pastor of St. Gregory the Illuminator – St. Elijah Cathedral of the Armenian Catholic Church in Beirut until 2022, before coming to the Boston area. He also was spiritual director of the Armenian Catholic youth of the Beirut diocese from 2014 to 2022 and organized many youth activities.

Fr. Ghazar Bedrossian in 2013-2014 when he was a catechism teacher at Holy Cross-Harboyan Armenian Catholic school in Lebanon

Fr. Ghazar says that not only does he like art, but he preaches faith through art. He sings opera as well as sacred music. In 2008 he took singing lessons in Rome from the Italian teacher Silvana Ferraro. He sang twice before Pope Benedict XVI, in 2010 and 2012, and has performed in many musical religious concerts. In 2018 in Beirut, he started taking vocal teaching lessons with the Armenian diva Arax Chekidjian, and still continues them.

Fr. Ghazar Bedrossian with the Armenian Catholic youth group in Poland in 2016 (World Youth Days), when he was the spiritual director of the Youth Committee in the Armenian Catholic Church, in the Diocese of Beirut. There were 400 Armenians assembled from all over the world.

He concluded, “My specific plan for my entire mission in New England and Boston is to preach Christ through Christian art and preserve the Armenian spiritual and cultural heritage.”

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