Obituary:
Lifetime of service
Archbishop Zaven Chinchinian (1929-2004)
Armenians in Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia have been in mourning since 20 January, when His Eminence Archbishop Zaven Chinchinian, the Prelate of the Armenian Church in those three nations, passed away in a Cairo hospital. The funeral service for Chinchinian, who at 74 had been suffering from lung cancer, took place at the Armenian Orthodox Church of Saint Gregory the Illuminator on Ramses street. The church was packed with about a thousand people, Christians and Muslims alike.
Archbishop Chinchinian, who was born in Aleppo, Syria, in September 1929, was given the baptismal name of Kevork. With his parents, he moved to Jerusalem in 1936, where he received his primary education at the Holy Translators School. In 1945, he entered the seminary of the Saint James Monastery of the Armenian Patriarchate in Jerusalem. He was ordained as a deacon in 1949. In 1951, he was ordained as a priest, and given the new name Zaven. Soon thereafter, he became a teacher at the Holy Translators School, then director of the monastery's print house, where he was assistant editor of the Patriarchate's monthly publication, Sion.
By 1954, he had become a Vartabed, or Archimandrite, while in 1958, he was relocated to Alexandria, Egypt, where he became the Vicar of the Prelate. In 1963, the Catholicos of All Armenians in Armenia, His Holiness Vazken I, made Chinchinian the Senior Archimandrite. In 1965, Vazken I ordained and consecrated Chinchinian as a bishop.
In 1969, after the death of Mampre Sirounian, the Archbishop of Egypt's Armenian church, Chinchinian was elected as the church's Locum Tenens, or Sirounian's successor. In 1974, he left Egypt for the Armenian Orthodox Church of South America.
In 1977, Vazken I issued a pontifical encyclical, appointing Chinchinian as Prelate of the Armenian Church in Cairo. Soon afterwards, in appreciation for his many years of devoted service, Vazken I named Chinchinian as Archbishop.
In 2002, Egypt's Armenian community celebrated Archbishop Chinchinian's silver jubilee. He was also given the Nersess Shenorhali medal for 50 years of service to the Armenian Church.
At Chinchinian's funeral service, Archbishop from the Holy Mother See Etchmiadzin, Armenia, read a message of condolence addressed to the Armenian Nation by Vazken II, Catholicos of All Armenians. The attendees included the Archbishops of Cyprus, Romania, Austria and Central Europe, and France. A delegation of four bishops representing Coptic Pope Shenouda III attended the funeral, as did the Archbishop of the Maronite Church, a representative of the Roman Orthodox Church, and a representative of the Vatican, all of whom delivered message of condolences.
Mustafa El-Feki, the chairman of parliament's foreign affairs committee, also spoke highly of Archbishop Chinchinian's life and work, as did Berj Terzian, who heads the Milli Council, a 12-member body responsible for communal decisions, and Souren Bayramian, a member of the council.
Representatives from the Armenian communities of Sudan and Ethiopia also expressed their deepest sorrow. The Patriarchate of the Catholic Coptic church, a representative of the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, and a representative of President Hosni Mubarak, were also there.
As the funeral service ended, the community bid its final farewell to a leader they will dearly miss -- for the way his voice touched their hearts during Sunday prayers, and the helpful manner with which he would guide and encourage their children to learn.
A group of young men from the community carried Chinchinian's coffin out of the church, where a final good-bye was said before the body was taken to Heliopolis's Armenian Orthodox Cemetery to be buried.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God (Matthew 5:8).
Nora Keuhnelian
