Nerses Bedros XIX was widely known for serving the Armenian community and promoting the interests of local people.
He was ordained as a priest in Cairo in 1965 and visited Armenian communities in Europe, the Middle East and the US to boost Armenian catholic schools.
It has also been reported that Archbishop of Mardine Ignace Maloyan, martyr of the Armenian genocide of 1915, was proclaimed blessed by Pope John Paul II at St Peter's Square in Rome, after he asked.
He is also thought to have sent the first parish priest to Moscow in 2002 in an attempt to begin a new mission among the Armenian Catholics in Russia.
In 1999 the patriarch was enthroned and received the Ecclesiastical Communion from Pope John Paul II.
He died after suffering a heart attack according to the Daily Star Lebanon.
