Your Holiness, Distinguished Clergy, Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the third time the Armenian Studies Program has been able to invite a Catholicos of the Armenian Church to visit California State University, Fresno and address its students and faculty. Twice, in 1980 and 1985, it was the Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia from Antelias, Lebanon, under whose administration is Holy Trinity Armenian Church in downtown Fresno, and, today, the Catholicos of All Armenians from Holy Etchmiadzin, the historical center of Armenian Christianity, to which are attached St. Paul Church in Fresno and the Armenian Churches of Reedley, Fowler, and Yettem. All three of these Catholicoi bear the name Karekin. All three are the same person, His Holiness Karekin Sarkissian. Every Armenian in the world has known him as his or her spiritual leader. He is universally loved. On him rests the hope for the spiritual revitalization of the nation and the administrative unity of the church in preparation for a Twenty-First century, which, with the help of God, will be free of persecution and foreign domination for Armenia and the Armenians. His Holiness, as the supreme head of the Armenian Church, must formulate a future program for the spiritual aspirations of an entire people and put into operation a plan to make real such a vision. This is the work not only of a person with deep Christian faith, but that of a leader and administrator. In our modern terminology, His Holiness is the C.E.O., Chief Executive Officer, of the Armenian Church, which itself is a vast multi-national organization. For this task, Karekin I has prepared all his life. As Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia for eighteen years and now Catholicos of Etchmiadzin, he has carried out his duties with courage, determination, and deep religious conviction In Antelias, His Holiness not only kept together his immediate flock during the unprecedent violence of the Lebanese Civil War, but he was also able to consolidate administrative and religious reforms while reinforcing spirituality in the Armenian Church, which for so long has had thrust upon it a job normally reserved for governments, the task of guaranteeing cohesion and survival to a nation which suffered death, exile, and fragmentation through genocide and a totalitarian, anti-religious communist regime. Today, the well-being of the nation is properly the job of the government of the Republic of Armenia. Yet, half the Armenians in the world are not citizens of that new state. These diaspora Armenians continue to look to the church for social solidarity as well as religious guidance. As Catholicos of Cilicia, Karekin II, brought the Armenian Church into the universal arena through (1) his own profound understanding of Christianity and its history, (2) his insistence on the active participation of Armenians in the ecumenical movement through the World Council of Churches, (3) his charismatic influence on younger clergy trained at the Theological Seminary of the Catholicossate in Antelias, and (4) his insistence that the primary purpose of the Armenian Church is spiritual. During the present month-long pastoral visit to North America, his first since being elected Catholicos of All Armenians, Karekin I has emphasized the youth and Christian education. As a distinguished scholar and graduate of Oxford University, His Holiness is a strong advocate of quality religious education. It is with this in mind that the Armenian Studies Program of California State University, Fresno has invited the Catholicos to present his vision of the role of education in Armenian Christianity. My friends, it is with the deepest admiration that I present to you my spiritual guide and intellectual friend of near forty years, the academic advisor of my own Master's thesis on the Armenian Church, His Holiness Karekin I, Catholicos of All Armenians.