KIRAKOS, VIRAPETZI. — Anchorite of the Armenian hermitage of Korvirap, in Greater Armenia, he was the first katholikós elected at Etchmiadzin (1441) while Gregory IX Moussapekianz, the legitimate successor of St. Gregory the Illuminator on the see of Sis (Cilicia), was still alive, and against his will to transfer to Etchmiadzin.
The election of K. marks the date of the alleged transfer of the patriarchal see from Sis to Etchmiadzin, a monastic seat near the village of Valarsapat at the foot of Mount Ararat, and the restoration of the patriarchate of all Armenians in Greater Armenia.
K. remained in office for only two years, as he was compelled to yield to the violence of his rivals in 1443 and retire to his own hermitage at Korvirap.
BIBL.: M. Cianciani, Storia (in Armenian), III, Venice 1756, pp. 485-92; L. Ališan, Ariarat (in Armenian), Venice 1950, pp. 215-16; Fr. Tournebize, Arménie, in DHG, IV, cols. 322 ff. Garabed Amaduni