On Monday, October 19th, 2020, His Holiness Catholicos Aram I ratified the election of HG Bishop Torkom Donoyan as the prelate of the Western Prelacy of the Armenian Church in the USA in a Pontifical letter directed to the Diocesan National Representative Assembly and wished the newly elected prelate success in fulfilling the mission entrusted to him. Simultaneously, His Holiness expressed his high appreciation to the preceding prelate HE Archbishop Moushegh Mardirossian for his dedicated service for the last 25 years.
HG Bishop Donoyan, who was previously serving as the Vicar General of the same prelacy, was unanimously elected during the 48th Assembly on Friday, October 16th, 2020.
HG Bishop Torkom Donoyan was born in 1986, in Beirut, Lebanon. He has received his early education at the “Souren Khanamirian” College, and was accepted to the Armenian Theological Seminary in 1997. He was ordained a celibate priest in 2006, and In 2010, defending his thesis on “The Anathema within the Armenian Church,” he received the rank of Vartabed. In 2016, HG Bishop Donoyan defended his second thesis on “The Armenian Prelacy in Adana,” and received the rank of Dzayrakouyn Vartabed. He has studied music in Beirut, Yerevan, and England, and attended theological intensive courses at St. Michael’s College in Wales, where he studied the rites and music of the Anglican Church.
At the Catholicosate of Cilicia, the newly elected prelate has assumed various responsibilities, including director of the Christian Education Department, head chorister of the St. Gregory Illuminator Cathedral and conductor of both the Catholicosate’s “Shnorhali” and Seminary’s “Armash” choirs, editor “HASK,” the official periodical of the Holy See of Cilicia, and Dean of the Seminary
In 2017, he was appointed as Vicar General of the Western Prelacy. In 2018, he was ordained as a Bishop by His Holiness Catholicos Aram I.
