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• catholicos
  catholicos

  noun
• Catholicos
  Catholicos

  noun

  the patriarch of the Armenian Church

catholicos

American  

[kuh-thol-i-kuhs, -kos] / kəˈθɒl ɪ kəs, -ˌkɒs /

noun

catholicoses, plural catholicoi plural

1. (often initial capital letter)

   1. any of the heads of certain autocephalous churches.

   2. (in some autocephalous churches) a primate subject to a patriarch and having authority over metropolitans.

2. (in the early Christian church) the head of monasteries in the same city.

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Catholicos British  

/ kəˈθɒlɪkɒs /

noun

1. the patriarch of the Armenian Church

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• catholicoi
  plural
• catholicoses
  plural

Etymology

Origin of catholicos

1615–25; < Late Greek katholikós, noun use of Greek adj.; see catholic

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

catholicos Catholicos

In Armenia, similarly, had grown up a national Church, which had a catholicos, a hierarchy, a vernacular liturgy of its own.

From The Church and the Barbarians Being an Outline of the History of the Church from A.D. 461 to A.D. 1003 by Hutton, William Holden

Those who dwelt nearest to Baghdad met the catholicos in yearly synod; those farthest off sent their confession of faith to him every sixth year.

From The Church and the Barbarians Being an Outline of the History of the Church from A.D. 461 to A.D. 1003 by Hutton, William Holden

Council after council, theologian, catholicos, monastery, bishop, alike denounced Justinian; and they had the support of the pagan philosophers whom he had expelled from the schools of Athens.

From The Church and the Barbarians Being an Outline of the History of the Church from A.D. 461 to A.D. 1003 by Hutton, William Holden

The dignity of the Persian catholicos was considerable; he might be compared with the Byzantine patriarchs, and the Church almost occupied the position of an established religion, related to the civil power.

From The Church and the Barbarians Being an Outline of the History of the Church from A.D. 461 to A.D. 1003 by Hutton, William Holden

If true, Pashinyan's allegation would make the Catholicos unfit for office.

From BBC ● Jun. 19, 2025

Under the Church's by-laws, only monks who took a vow of celibacy can be elected a Catholicos.

From BBC ● Jun. 19, 2025

Armenian Apostolic Church head Catholicos Garegin II and other top clerics have called for him to step down.

From Washington Times ● Jan. 6, 2021

Now that's changing and Catholicos Karekin II came to Yangon to try to resolve a dispute over the management of the church and its property.

From BBC ● Oct. 6, 2014

Marco Polo, in writing concerning Armenia, mentions this pope or Catholicos, and says there are two sects of Christians, the Nestorians and Jacobites, their pope being named Jacobus, whom this Joseph named their Catholicos.

From A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 02 Arranged in Systematic Order: Forming a Complete History of the Origin and Progress of Navigation, Discovery, and Commerce, by Sea and Land, from the Earliest Ages to the Present Time by Kerr, Robert