Matthew I was born in 1845 in Istanbul as Simeon Martirosi Izmirlian ( Սիմէոն Մարտիրոսի Իզմիրլեան ) . He was ordained as priest in 1869 and served as the personal secretary to Patriarch Mkrtich Khrimian when the latter was still Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople in the early 1870s . He was elected in 1872 as secretary of the Armenian religious council of Constantinople , and raised to level of " dzayrakouyn vardapet " or supreme archimandrite in 1873 and bishop in 1876 . After a brief period as Bishop of Egypt for the Armenian Apostolic Church from 1886 to 1890 , he was elected as Patriarch of Constantinople in 1894 . His insistence on democratic reforms and rights of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as well as his protest against the Hamidian massacres against the Ottoman Armenians in 1894 – 1896 earned him the title " Iron Patriarch . " Because of his activism , in 1896 the Ottoman authorities dethroned him as Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople and exiled him to Jerusalem . He returned briefly from exile in 1908 after the Committee of Union and Progress declared the restoration of the constitution in 1908 and was reelected as Patriarch of Constantinople for a few months . After the death of Catholicos Khrimian , Izmirlian was elected as Catholicos of All Armenians as Matthew II and left for Etchmiadzin for his consecration . He held the post of Catholicos of All Armenians for three years before he died . During his tenure , he became the first Catholicos to make a pilgrimage to Ani , the ruined capital of medieval Armenia
Hamidian massacres
Hamidian massacres
Matthew II Izmirlian