Very Rev. Fr. Hrant Tahanian, whose baptismal name is Hovhannes, was born on November 10, 1987, in Montreal, Canada, in a family of descendants of Genocide survivors. He graduated from Soorp Hagop Armenian School in 2005 and continued his higher studies in Pure and Applied Sciences at Montmorency College. Upon graduation, he attended the Armenian Theological Seminary in Antelias, Lebanon, and was ordained as celibate priest in 2010.

After serving in various capacities at the Catholicosate of the Holy See of Cilicia, in 2012 he was appointed pastor of St. Gregory Church in Vancouver, British Columbia. Very Rev. Fr. Hrant simultaneously completed his Master of Theology at the University of British Columbia and defended a thesis entitled “Speciesism: The Primordial Sin / A Study of rdh and Lynn White’s Article from an Orthodox Perspective.” In 2015, the rank of archimandrite (Vartabed) was bestowed upon him after defending a thesis about the correspondence of Bishop Yeghishe Garoyan with Catholicos Sahag II of the Great House of Cilicia in 1921-1931. In 2021, he was elevated to the rank of senior archimandrite (Dzayrakuyn Vartabed).

In 2017, he became the Ecumenical and Inter-religious Officer of the Catholicosate of Cilicia, serving and representing our church in various ecumenical bodies and dialogues, most notably the World Council of Churches, where he was re-elected to be on the Central Committee in 2022. In 2024, he was elected to serve as the Co-Moderator of one of the WCC’s Reference Groups (Overcoming Racism, Xenophobia, Casteism, and all forms of Discrimination).