Seminary Alumnus and faculty member Very Rev. Dr. Daniel Findikyan is now Bishop Daniel of the Armenian Church. Bishop Daniel was consecrated May 12, 2019 by His Holiness Karekin II, the Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians, at Holy Etchmiadzin, Armenia.
The episcopal ordination follows Bishop Findikyan’s election in 2018 as primate of the Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church of America. His Grace Daniel became the twelfth primate of the diocese, succeeding Archbishop Khajag Barsamian, and is now the first primate born in America in the 120-year history of the Eastern Diocese.
Bishop Daniel will return to the U.S. to celebrate his first Divine Liturgy as bishop among the faithful of the Eastern Diocese on Saturday, May 18.
Bishop Daniel is a native of Fort Worth, Texas. Ordained as a celibate priest in 1997, and a noted international scholar of liturgics, His Grace has served the Armenian Church as dean of North America’s St. Nersess Armenian Seminary, and currently serves as director of the Krikor and Clara Zohrab Information Center, the Eastern Diocese’s research and scholarship facility. Bishop Daniel is professor of Armenian Studies at St. Vladimir’s Seminary, where His Grace graduated with a Master of Divinity (M.Div.) degree in 1989. He also obtained an M.Div. from St. Nersess Seminary. Bishop Daniel earned his doctorate in Liturgical Studies from the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome, where he studied under Robert Taft, S.J., and holds a Master of Arts degree in Musicology from the City University of New York.
Bishop Daniel has published numerous articles in scholarly journals and books, and has and has lectured throughout the United States, as well as in Armenia, Greece, Italy, Lebanon, Sweden, Slovakia and Russia.
