Bishop Terenig Poladian and his Rich Scholarly Legacy

 Bishop Terenig Poladian

This year marks the 60^th anniversary of the murder of bishop Terenig Poladian. On February 17, 2023, the noted historian and linguist Hagop Tcholakian noted the following on his Facebook page about the late bishop Terenig Poladian (1914-1963).

 Hagop Tcholakian wrote: “It was known to some that the brothers of the bishop Terenig Poladian, kept their brother’s unpublished scholarly works. I thought that these manuscripts also contained historical information about Kessab. I asked the brothers Vartan and Vahak, who lived in Kessab, about the archives. Both denied the existence of such an archive. Obviously, they did not want to share. After their death, I also talked about it with Vardan's eldest son, Apik. He sent me a photo showing the newly started construction of thecathedral of the Catholicosate of Cilicia in Antelias, Lebanon. Apik noted that the picture was taken from his uncle's archival collection. He seemed willing to present the archives to me.Regretfully, not long after the assault on Kessab happened (March 21l, 2014), as a result of which, the people of Kessab took refuge in Latakia, and I came to Yerevan. Three months later, my Kessab compatriots returned to Kessab. I decided to inquire about the archives when I visited Kessab.  But unfortunately, I learned that Apik had died suddenly in his house in Basit, a coastal town south of Kessab. I didn't know what became of the archive during the invasion. I think that Abik's son, Vardan knows the fate of that archive, whether it is properly preserved, or if it has already been handed over to safe hands."

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Hagop Tcholakian also attached a copy of an article published in SION, the official journal of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem. I translated the article and I posted it below. The original is linked below.

"The Armenian Apostolic Church is overwhelmed with grief at the demise of one of its highest-ranking and most learned servant, Bishop Terenig Poladian, who was murdered in Beirut on Friday, November 22, by a deranged Armenian young man.

«The baptismal name of the deceased was Haig. He was born in Kessab on the first day of 1914. The following year the infant lived the ordeal of the deportation and the death of many of his relatives. The orphaned infant Haig was returned to Kessab after the Armistice.

Barely a kindergarten student, he shined with his brilliance. In 1927, eager to study, he applied to the American College of Aleppo, where he studied for five years and in 1932graduated with an extraordinary success.

A year later, he embarked on his teaching career. However, feeling a call to religion, he was accepted to the seminary in Antelias along with Catholicos Zareh I, of blessed memory. In 1935 he was ordained celibate priest.

In 1938, he left for the North. America to further his education, where he stayed for seven years, conquering all the milestones of academia, specializing in theological, philosophical and pedagogical studies.

In 1945, he returned to Antelias with Catholicos Karekin I, where the following year he was appointed the Dean of the Antelias Seminary, a position he fulfilled brilliantly for the next ten years. Under his high supervision, the school lived a period of spiritual and intellectual awakening, giving the Armenian people a cadre of dedicated spiritual servants aware of their lofty calling.

In 1947, Catholicos Karekin I of blessed memory ordained him bishop.

In 1956, after the well-known sad events around the See of Cilicia, he left Antias and devoted himself to scholarly works and traveled to study the history of our ccommunities. He traveled to many countries, studying especially the Armenian Churches of the Far East, in communities that had been rarely or never visited, and collected inexhaustible material forstudying the history of their glorious past, gathering information mostly from tombstoneinscriptions and memorials.

Since 1960, His grace bishop Terenig, was in Addis Ababa, serving the Ethiopian sister church as the Dean of its Theological Seminary. He visited the Jerusalem Armenian Patriarchate of Saint James, when His Holiness Catholicos Vazken I visited the Patriarchate. He lived days of pure joy having witnessed the historical embrace of the two heads of the Armenian Apostolic Church. He was an ardent believer in the Unity of the the Church.

His grace Bishop Terenig was the author of more than ten volumes about religion, history and archaeology, as well as in pedagogy. He also has a number of unique scholarly studies. The most important of which is his study of the history of the Armenian communities of the Far East. His manuscript may fill two thick volumes. 

Bishop Terenig Poladian was brutally killed on the eve of his 50th birthday, when he was in the fullness of his intellectual strength and when the Armenian Church and the nation had great expectations from him. He became a man of inexhaustible labor, of hard and patient work. This untimely termination of his rich life, which was laden with the promise of new and glorious days, leading to the dawn of our church's unity, has filled all those who knew him with deep sorrow.”

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What happened to Bishop Terenig Poladian’s unpublished manuscripts? 

Zeron A Panossian noted the following in response to Hagop Tcholakian’s inquiry. 

“The entire archive of Bishop Terenig  Polatiad remained in Kessab until 2014 when the population of Kessab moved to Latakia for safety. 

At the end of three months, the returning Kesabtsis found out that the entire archive had remained intact in his nephew’s Haig's house.

Through my initiative, the archived materials arrived safely in Lebanon to be handed over to the Catholicosate of Antelias."

Բնագիրը՝ https://vhapelian.blogspot.com/2023/02/bishop-terenig-poladian-and-his-rich.html