Nshan Topouzian

Ara Topouzian was born in the village of Shtora in the Beqaa Valley of Lebanon on 2 April 1966 and baptized on 13 April 1966. Ara went to the Armenian primary school of Zahlé, and at the age of 12 he entered the Armenian Seminary of the Holy See of Cilicia in Antelias. After completing the 5-year Jarankavorats (high school) program, he became a deacon in 1984. After finishing the Undzayaran (college) program he was ordained a celibate priest and given the name Nshan by Catholicos Karekin I Sarkissian in 1987. In February 1991 he was sent as a visiting priest to the Diocese of Atrpatakan in Tabriz in Iran, and in May 1991 he was appointed Pontifical Legate of Atrpatakan by Karekin I. In August 2002 he was elected Prelate of the Diocese of Aderbadagan. The new Catholicos of Cilicia, Aram I, appointed him Bishop of Atrpatakan on 4 June 2006.[2]

In the time of Nshan being Prelate of Atrpatakan, the four Armenian churches of Tabriz – Saint Mary Church (Surp Mariam), Saint Sarkis Church (Surp Sarkis), Saint Mary Church of Maralan (Maryam Nanna or Na-Na) and Shoghakat Church – and the Prelacy were renovated, and a new church was built in Urmia. When he was Prelate, the Ararat Cultural Complex of Tabriz was built at Valman Street (opposite to the Presbyterian Church of Tabriz) close to South Shariati Street and Baron Avak neighborhood with the Armenian Saint Sarkis Church of Tabriz. Due to the efforts of Nshan Topuziaan and other Armenian priests in cooperation with the Iranian government, on 8 July 2008, three ancient church complexes of the Armenian Diocese of Atrpatakan were added to the UNESCO's World Heritage List under the name Armenian Monastic Ensembles of Iran: the Monastery of Saint Thaddeus, the Monastery of Saint Stepanos and the Chapel of Dzordzor.[2]

Several times he visited the Arax river near Jolfa, where he observed the destruction of the ancient Armenian cemetery in Julfa in the Republic of Azerbaijan on the opposite bank of the river by Azerbaijani soldiers between 1997 and 2006. Together with other Armenian clergymen and Iranian experts of architecture, he photographed and filmed the soldiers when they were destroying the khachkars and gravestones. He wrote several articles for the Tehran newspaper Alik, where his photographs were shown to a broader public.[2][3][4][5][6]

Besides his native Western Armenian and Arabic, Bishop Nshan was also fluent in Eastern Armenian, Persian and Azerbaijani.

Interment of Neshan Topoziyan at Shoghakat Church in Tabriz, 5 May 2010

In 2010 he fell sick with hepatocellular carcinoma, and he was admitted to treatment in the Nork-Marash Medical Center of Yerevan at the beginning of April 2010, but it was too late. On 27 April 2010, he died at the age of 44.

On 2 May 2010 the Extreme Unction service was held at Surp Hakob Church in Kanaker in Armenia by Bishop Ararat Kaltakjian of Etchmiadzin, Archbishop Sepuh Sargsyan of Tehran and Bishop Papken Tcharian of Isfahan.[7] He was buried in Tabriz at the Armenian cemetery next to Shoghakat Church of Tabriz on 5 May 2010.[8]

• In Memoriam: Nshan Topouzian, the bishop of Aderbadagan. Bishop Nshan Topouzian (1966-2010), Prelate of the Armenian Diocese of Aderbadagan (Iran). Orthodoxy Cognate Page, OCP Media Network, 29 April 2010.