[2][3] Chechemian or Checkemian was born in Malatya, Eastern Anatolia to parents Jacob and Rose (née Gruchian).
[4] Chechemian was ordained as a priest on 27 November 1866 by Leon Chorchorunian (lived 1822–1897), the Armenian Catholic Church's archbishop of Malatya.
At Malatya, probably in 1878 or thereabouts, Chechemian was blessed as vardapet,[1]: 46, 218 a highly educated celibate priest, or archimandrite, who is a doctor of theology.
[12] However, Bain also notes that Henry Brandreth considers it doubtful that Chorchorunian ever consecrated Chechemian as a bishop.
[5] According to Anson, Chechemian both used "the word 'doctor' as more intelligible to Scottish Presbertarian readers" in the 1880s, and years later stated that he was consecrated a bishop in 1879.
Anson also noted that in the 1880s Frederick Temple, bishop of London, "recommended him as 'a bishop of a church other than the established church'", but Anson supposed that in the 1880s Archibald Tait, archbishop of Canterbury, "was not aware of the precise status of a vartapet—or did Chechemian mislead him?
While Persson did not write in a section about "The apostolic succession of the Apostolic Episcopal Church from the Armenian Catholic Church" that Chechemian was consecrated as bishop by Chorchorunian, Persson had not removed that section but equivocated that Chechemian was only "blessed as vardapet" by Chorchorunian in 1878.
[1]: 221 Between 1878 and 1881 Chechemian served in a leadership role in the Armenian Catholic Church in his home town of Malatya.
The question of whether, in 1878 or 1879, he was raised to episcopal status in the Armenian Catholic Church is discussed earlier in this article.
He emigrated to the United Kingdom in 1885 and worked as a groom; he moved to Edinburgh, Scotland, where he lived on charity, studied at New College, Edinburgh, and worked with the Scottish Reformation Society;[1]: 217 he moved to Belfast, Ireland,[1]: 219 Chechemian became a notable lecturer at various churches in the city of Belfast and c. 1889 founded a meeting place for a mix of Protestant denominations called the Free Protestant Church of England.
George Maaers and Frederick Boucher were consecrated on 2 November 1897 by Chechemian and Martin, to assist in the leadership of the new church.
The Free Protestant Episcopal Church of England was official recognised as a legally constituted denomination by the British Government in early 1917 after a test case of the 1916 Military Service Act.
Ernest A. Asquith helped obtain this recognition that allowed clergy exemption from military service in World War I.
Charles Isaac Stevens was consecrated on 6 March 1879 by Richard Williams Morgan, assisted by Frederick George Lee and Dr John Thomas Seccombe.
Ferrette (originally a Roman Catholic priest) claimed to have been consecrated as a bishop in 1866 by the Syrian Orthodox bishop of Damascus, MV Bedros, who later (1872) became Maran Mar Ignatius Peter IV (or III) of Antioch, known as "Peter the Humble", the Syrian Orthodox patriarch.
However, the website of the Order of Corporate Reunion (as at 2015 led by Peter Paul Brennan) asserts that the consecrators were Dominicus Agostina (cardinal patriarch of Venice), Luigi Nazari di Caliana (archbishop of Milan), Vincentius Moretti (a cardinal), and Ignatios Ghiurekian (a Byzantine archbishop and abbot-general of Ordo Mechitaristarum Venetiarum from the island of St Lazarus near Venice), and that they acted with the authority of Pope Pius IX.