Patriarch and Catholicon of all Armenians, Head of the Armenian Apostolic Church

He was born in 1951 in Voskehat Village, Echmiadzinsky Raion, Armenian SSR. In 1965 he entered the ecclesiastic seminary of Emiadzin Mother Church, which he graduated in 1971, later he worked as a teacher in this seminary.

In 1970 he was ordained as deacon and in 1972 as priest. According to the instruction of Patriarch and Catholicon Vazgen I, he went to Vienna to continue his ecclesiastic education.

In 1975 upon the instruction of Catholicon Vazgen I, he went to Germany where he served as a spiritual pastor and continued ecclesiastic education in Bonn University.

In 1979 he came back to Echmiadzin, later he went to Zagorsk where he studied in the post-graduate school at Moscow Spiritual Academy of the Russian Orthodox Church.

In March 1980, when Catholicon of all Armenians Garegin I was the patriarch, archbishop Garegin Nersesyan was appointed as the senior vicar of the Catholicon of all Armenians and was in this position till 4 July 1999.

On 27 October 1999, after the death of Catholicon Garegin I, the National Church Council (supreme administration body) of the Armenian Apostolic Church elected Archbishop Garegin Nersesyan as the 132^nd Patriarch and Catholicon of all Armenians.

He is a member of the Supreme spiritual board, the members of which are elected by the Council.