SOUTHFIELD, Mich. — Rev. Fr. Diran Avak Kahana Papazian died on November 21, 2018 at Manoogian Manor, at the age of 98.

The Service of Burial and Last Anointing took place on Wednesday, December 5 with the celebration of Badarak (Divine Liturgy). Following Badarak, the clergy and family proceeded to Woodlawn Cemetery for the interment. A hokejosh was held at St. John Armenian Church.

Born on February 12, 1920, to Aghasi and Teskhouhi Papazian in the waning days of the Ottoman Empire in what was then the city of Constantinople with the baptismal name Garabed, Der Diran lost his mother and father at a young age and was placed in an orphanage for a short time. His younger brother Khatchig had died three years earlier when he was one and a half years old. Garabed was baptized by the Patriarch of Constantinople at the age of 6. Soon after, he began his schooling at the Armenian Cathedral School in Istanbul where he learned Armenian (both kurapar, classical, and ashkharapar, coloquial), Turkish, and Hebrew. Over the course of his life, he would add Greek, English, Arabic, French, and Aramaic. In December 1934, at the age of 14, he left Istanbul to attend the Theological Seminary of the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem, graduating from the seminary in 1940.

After 1940, Fr. Diran found himself in Ramallah, Palestine, not being able to return to Turkey because of the outbreak of World War II. He began working at the British Consulate as a translator, hoping to come to the U.S. to continue his education. The chaos of war made it difficult for him to obtain a passport, and thus his travels to the United States were put on hold. Finally, in 1949 Fr. Diran moved to Lebanon, where he began to work for the Patriarchate of Cilicia. In 1950, he was admitted to the Theological Seminary of the Great House of Cilicia in Antelias, Lebanon, where he continued his studies. While studying in Lebanon, he authored his prize-winning lyrics for the official anthem of the Church Schools in the Middle East, which is still in use today. As world events by then had settled down, he now was able to apply successfully for a British passport.

At the invitation of Archbishop Tiran Nersoyan, then-Primate of the Diocese of the Armenian Church, Eastern, Garabed arrived in the United States in 1951 to pursue further theological studies, thereby fulfilling his long-held dream. He first attended the Philadelphia Divinity School, but later transferred to the Episcopal Theological Seminary in Massachusetts, where he graduated with a Bachelor’s of Divinity degree. He then enrolled at the Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge, MA, where he earned Master’s degrees in Sacred Theology and Philosophy in 1956.

In 1957, he moved to Detroit, where he married the late Yeretzgin Rosalie Papazian, an active church worker and teacher in the public schools. On February 23, 1958, he was ordained as a priest at St. John’s Episcopal Church of Detroit by Archbishop Mampre Calfayan, then-Primate. He served at St. John’s Armenian Church in Detroit for 15 years. Over the sixty years of his priesthood, he would marry, baptize, and preside over the funerals for four generations of his parishioners.

Source: https://mirrorspectator.com/2018/12/06/obituary-rev-fr-diran-avak-kahana-papazian-dedicated-priest-family-man/