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.

Vazgen I led the Armenian Church during the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and was the first Catholicos in newly independent Armenia.

The young Levon Baljian did not initially pursue the Church as a profession, instead graduating from the University of Bucharest's Faculty of Philosophy and Letters.

He eventually gained the title of vardapet, an ecclesiastical rank for learned preachers and teachers in the Armenian Apostolic Church roughly equivalent to receiving a doctorate in theology.

During his long time as Catholicos, he managed to assert some independence for his church in face of the Soviet rule in the Armenian SSR, and lived to see religious freedom restored under Armenia's national government in 1991.