His Holiness Vazgen I (also Vasken I, Armenian: Վազգեն Ա, born Levon Garabed Baljian; September 20, 1908—August 18, 1994) was the Catholicos of the Armenian Apostolic Church between 1955 and 1994, in one of the longest reigns of the Armenian Catholicoi. A native of Romania, he began his career as a philosopher, before becoming a Doctor of Theology and a member of the local Armenian clergy. The leader of the Armenian Apostolic Church hierarchy in Romania, he became Catholicos during the 1950s, moving to the Soviet Union and residing in the Armenian SSR. Vazgen I led the Armenian Church during the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and was the first Catholicos in newly-independent Armenia.