Vatche Ekmekjian

Rev. Vatche Ekmekjian was born in 1970, Aleppo, Syria in a Christian family which cherished the values and the teachings of the Bible. His first Christian formation was at the Vartanantz Elementary School in his neighborhood, which was run by the Order of the Armenian Jesuit Fathers.

In 1988 he graduated from Karen-Eppe Armenian High School and in the same year he was accepted into Haigazian University College, jL Beirut where he completed his BA in Psychology JB and graduated in 1995. The Near East School of JHf Theology (NEST) in Beirut. Lebanon and the յ^ա . M.Div program was his next academic mile¬stone, where he built his theological formation and went into r Having completed his studies in 1997, his first field of servi Armenian Evangelical Churches of Kessab (est. 1852) and Kaladouran (est. 1873) for five years. From 2002-2004 he served as the junior high and college youth minister for the Armenian Evangelical Churches of Syria. In 2004 he assumed the pastoral position of the Armenian Evangelical Church of the Martyrs', Aleppo (est. 1931). In 2005 he was ordained as minister and in 2010 he and his family moved to California to be the senior pastor of Immanuel Armenian Congregational Church, Downey (est. 1930).

Currently, he is working on his Masters in Marriage and Family Therapy (class of 2017). Pastor Vatche is married to Lena Khacherian (BA in Christian Education, HU and NEST). They live in Pasadena, CA and together they parent their three wonderful children, Ari, Hrag and Narod.