Rev. Rick Giragosian was born in the early 1950’s in Providence Hospital in Washington, DC, as his parents at the time were government employees. He was told that the hospital was immediately torn down after his birth and replaced with a parking garage. He wonders about the connection between the two events to this day. 

At age 3, wishing to stay in DC, he was forced to move with his family to Watertown, MA when his father took a civil engineering job, his mother wrote for newspapers. Eventually his family moved to the south shore where he graduated from High School. Pastor Rick graduated later from Bridgewater State University after switching his major 4-5 times and ended up with a degree in Psychology. He first went to work after high school in Atlanta after his uncle prompted the owner (a friend of his uncle) to hire him and join a fledgling company just a couple months old called Mastercard. Had he stayed, he would have become a billionaire by now, he is sure. Instead he looked out the window of the 20th floor and daydreamed of something better. So his uncle got him a job in Atlanta selling industrial equipment. That experience lasted a summer and he returned home to take care of his sick mother (his father, a civilian contractor had died in Vietnam when Rick was 15). He went to work doing Marine biology (his then current major at BSU was biology), for Batelle Labs in Duxbury. 

It was while at Batelle that he was introduced to the pastor and seminarian at Pilgrim Church in Duxbury,  situated just across the street. At their urging he became increasingly involved working with the young people at the church. It was then that he switched majors to psychology, deciding he liked working with people more than flounders. He graduated from Andover Newton Theological School in 1979, and took a job as pastor in NH caring for three small churches. He had a Sunday service at 9am, 11am and one at the 3rd church that began promptly when all the cows had finished being milked. He confesses that he loved the job, but the travel between the churches on Sundays and for night meetings with 3 distinct sets of committees made him, at times, think fondly of the flounders.

Following serving in NH, he served churches in CT and MA that typically had a third as many committee meetings and services as the tri yoked parishes in NH. He is fortunate to say that he has enjoyed ministry and is thrilled to spend his retirement serving in places like Hingham, where he has already noticed that “all the women are strong, the men good looking and the children are above average.” He hopes that beginning 11/16 you will swing by the church office and tell him your story.

Pastor Rick is married to a now retired registrar at BSU. They have 3 children of whom he is extremely proud; a daughter Sarah, who is an accomplished and published poet and professor at SUNY Albany: Travis who is finishing med school in 3 months and beginning his residency. His specialty is in psychiatry. His third child is his daughter Muna, who is a deeply caring therapist and an accomplished Irish fiddler. Yes, at times, Pastor Rick feels like a slouch but realizes at least he’s not the CEO of Mastercard or swimming with the flounders. He finds joy and enormous satisfaction in working alongside people like the amazing folks who are doing their very best to advance God’s kingdom of love and grace in Hingham and beyond. Pastor Rick is a published author of 3 books, 2 books of essays and a young-adult novel that explores the origins of empathy.