Tribute to Reverend Bernard Guekguezian March 21, 2009

NORTH AMERICAN CHURCH UNION TO SALUTE MINISTRY MILESTONE
FOR CENTRAL CALIFORNIA PASTOR

A hemispheric convocation will salute a Central California cleric for 55 years of pastoral ministry in the Old and New Worlds.

The Armenian Evangelical Union of North America will pay tribute to Reverend Bernard Asadoor Guekguezian for a half-century and half-decade of Gospel service around the globe.

The milestone celebration will take place at a gala banquet on Saturday, March 21, 2009, beginning at 6 p.m. The banquet venue is the Fellowship Hall of Fresno’s First Armenian Presbyterian Church, 430 South First Street at Huntington Boulevard.

Tickets are $25 per person and banquet sponsorships, which include multiple dinner tickets, are also available. Ticket ordering and other celebration information is available by calling Edward and Roseann Saliba at (559) 323-5502.

The youngest of nine children, Reverend Guekguezian was born near Antioch, Turkey in the summer of 1927. After attending local schools, he immigrated to the Middle East in 1939 for further studies at Armenian Evangelical educational institutions in Beirut, Lebanon and the Aleppo College of Syria.

He completed a combined course of study at the American University of Beirut and the Near East School of Theology in 1952, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree and a Diploma in Theology.

Guekguezian served as a licensed pastor at the Armenian Evangelical Church of Alexandria, Egypt for two years and then came to the United States for additional ministerial training. He studied at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena and New York Theological Seminary, where he earned a Master of Arts degree in Christian Education.

The Congregational Conference of Massachusetts ordained Guekguezian a Minister of the Word in 1959. That same year he was called to serve as pastor of America’s oldest Armenian congregation--the Armenian Congregational Church of the Martyrs in Worcester, Massachusetts. During his seven-year tenure in that pulpit, he engaged in doctoral studies in Modern European History at Clark University.

In 1966, Reverend Guekguezian accepted a call to the Armenian Presbyterian Church of Paramus, Bergen County, New Jersey, where he served for a dozen inspiring years. On December 10, 1978, he was installed as the tenth pastor of Fresno’s First Armenian Presbyterian Church, the oldest Armenian religious institution in California and the boyhood congregation of authors William Saroyan and A.I. Bezzerides.

Reverend Guekguezian’s ministry at the Fresno church was marked by outreach to native Californians as well as to Armenian émigrés from the Near East and Republic of Armenia. At the conclusion of his record 22 years in the pulpit, the Fresno congregation named him Pastor Emeritus.

In addition to his pastoral duties, Guekguezian has served multiple terms as Moderator of the AEUNA, Vice-President of the Armenian Evangelical World Council, Vice-President of the Armenian Theological Students’ Aid, Inc., and member of the Presbytery of San Joaquin Committee on New Church Development.

He is married to the former Knar Kazanjian of Aleppo, Syria and they have two sons, Reverend Ara Richard Guekguezian of Fresno and Asbed Bernard Guekguezian, Esquire of West Newton, Massachusetts, as well as five grandchildren.

Headquartered in Glendale, California, the AEUNA is an ecclesiastical confederation of Armenian Protestant churches, missions, and fellowships in the United States of America and Dominion of Canada. Reverend Joseph Matossian is Minister to the Union and Reverend Avedis Boynerian is the Moderator.

Official Website: http://www.aeuna.org