AZARIAN, ARISTACE (Aristakes). - Second general abbot of the Mekhitarist monks of Vienna; titular archbishop of Caesarea, b. in Constantinople on 28 July 1782. He studied in Rome at the Collegio Urbano (1797–98), and entered (1801) the Congregation of the Mekhitarist Fathers of Trieste. The Sacred Congregation of Propaganda sent him to Lviv, whence he departed for Constantinople (1818) as an apostolic missionary. In 1823 he was appointed coadjutor to the abbot and prior of the convent of Vienna; he was subsequently elected vicar and, in 1827, general abbot. A. may be regarded as the true founder of the Congregation of the Mekhitarists of Vienna. In 1850 he drew up a Compendium of the monastic rules of
1711 of Abbot Mekhitar, and had it approved by Pius IX through the decree of 23 Jan. 1852.