London’s ‘disgraceful Vardapet’:Armenian priest, Adulterer, Soviet Agent

Abel Abrahamian arrived in London in 1919 as an energetic vardapet (celibate priest). He was instrumental in building the city’s first Armenian church, St Sarkis. He joined the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Patriarch of Constantinople when the king received them at Buckingham Palace. Post-genocide, when the plight of the Armenians was of public concern, he spoke eloquently from public platforms. The young vardapet, by now going by the name Nazarian, was a rising star.
Yet this came to an abrupt halt, when in 1923 he fled London with a young mother, a relative of Calouste Gulbenkian. He was now an adulterer, leaving confusion in the church. The vardapet who had abandoned holy orders teamed up with the Soviet secret police to help destroy the Church which had trained and nurtured him.
How a young man born on the southern rim of the Russian Empire, educated at Echmiadzin seminary and European universities, came and went in a whirlwind through London and back to Soviet Armenia before regaining western Europe is the extraordinary tale told here for the first time.