Pastor Announces His COVID Positive Test And Cancels Weekly Service

A Pastor at the St. Gregory Armenian Church of Fowler has contracted the coronavirus.

Pastor Rev. Fr. Gomidas Zohrabian says he received his positive test Friday.

In a statement Saturday, the pastor says he likely contracted the virus after being exposed in Los Angeles.

To keep everyone safe and make sure they quarantine properly due to possible exposure, St. Gregory Church will be closed for the next week. Sunday services and weekly services are both cancelled.

Rev. Fr. Gomidas Zohrabian was born in Tehran, Iran, on June 25, 1965, and was given the baptismal name Igit. In 1972, his family moved to Armenia. In 1983, he entered the Gevorkian Theological Seminary at the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin.

Upon returning to the seminary in 1985 after fulfilling compulsory military service, he continued his studies and graduated in 1990. On December 25, 1989, he was ordained as a deacon by Archbishop Housig Santuryan, the canon sacristan of the Cathedral of Holy Etchmiadzin. Later His Holiness Vazken I, the late Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of all Armenians, appointed him a supervisor of the seminary.

In 1991, he was assigned as an assistant to the manager of the museum of the Cathedral of Holy Etchmiadzin. In May 1992, he was appointed to the Araratian Pontifical Diocese’s St. Sarkis Church in Yerevan. He returned to the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin in 1994 as an assistant to the manager of the museum.

He arrived in the United States in 1995 and studied for two years at Concordia College in Bronxville, NY. He also studied at St. Nersess Armenian Seminary and at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary.

In 1999, Fr. Gomidas began working at the St. Vartan Cathedral bookstore and organizing an Armenian language Saturday School for the newly-settled Russian-speaking Armenians in Brooklyn, NY.

Fr. Gomidas was ordained to the holy priesthood on February 22 and 23, 2003. He has since served as the pastor of St. George Church of Hartford, CT.

He and his wife Ellen have three children, Angel, Gregory and Anthony.