BISHOP EPHREM SUKIASYAN

1911-1913 (Years of Leadership)

Bishop Ephrem Sukiasyan was born in 1855 in Ashtarak village, Armenia.

In 1873, Bishop Ephrem Sukiasyan graduated from the Gevorkian Theological Seminary of the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin.

In 1876, he was ordained as a deacon, in the same year was appointed to serve as a teacher in the Gevorkian Theological Seminary of the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin.

In 1880, Bishop Ephrem Sukiasyan was elected as a member of the Typographic Conventions of the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin.  

In 1882, Bishop Ephrem Sukiasyan was a teacher of Armenian language at the Gevorkian Theological Seminary of the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin.  

In 1886, Bishop Ephrem Sukiasyan was the Armenian language teacher in the School for Noble Maidens in Vagharshapat.  

In 1887, he was ordained as a celibate priest and appointed to serve as the Abbot of the Monastery of Surb Khach (Holy Cross) in Nor Nakhijevan, where he administered schools and established various organizations.

In 1889, he received the rank of Archimandrite.

On June 21, 1893, Bishop Ephrem Sukiasyan was elected as one of the members of the delegation, which went to Jerusalem to accompany the newly elected Catholicos of All Armenians, Mkrtich I Vanetsi Khrimyan (commonly known as Khrimyan Harik) to the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin.

In 1897, Bishop Ephrem Sukiasyan was appointed as a member of the Monastic Council of the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin. In the same year by the order of Mkrtich I Vanetsi Khrimyan, Catholicos of All Armenians, he was appointed as a member of the Consistory of Kishinev.

In 1900, Bishop Ephrem Sukiasyan was moved to Shemakha as a member of the Consistory.

In 1904, Bishop Ephrem Sukiasyan was appointed as the Chairman of the Armenian Church’s Tbilisi Consistory and at the same time administered Tiflis estates, belonging to the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin.

In 1910, Mateos II Konstandopoulos Izmiryan, Catholicos of All Armenians, consecrated him as a Bishop.

On September 17 1911, Bishop Ephrem Sukiasyan was appointed to serve as the Head of the Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Orthodox Holy Church in Georgia.

In 1913, Bishop Ephrem Sukiasyan was elected as a member of the Synod of the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin.

From 1914 to 1915, Bishop Ephrem Sukiasyan served as the Chairman in the local Resettlement Commission of the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin.

Bishop Ephrem was also actively engaged in literary pursuits. He wrote a number of articles in Armenian newspapers under the pen names “Set” and “Sagrat.”

Bishop Ephrem Sukiasyan passed away on August 4, 1915, at the age of 60.