KIRAKOS, VIRAPETZI. — A hermit of the Armenian hermitage of Korvirap, in Greater Armenia, he was the first katholikós elected in Egmiadzin (1441), while Gregory IX Moussapekianzt, the legitimate successor of St. Gregory the Illuminator in the see of Sis (Cilicia), was still alive, and against his wishes that it be transferred to Egmiadzin.
The election of K. marks the date of the purported transfer of the patriarchal see from Sis to Egmiadzin, a cenobium-see near the village of Valarsapt 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, for in 1443 he had to yield to the high-handedness of his rivals and withdraw to his own hermitage of Korvirap.