Religious Figure, Author. He was a French-born American philosopher and theologian. His parents were Armenian. He is best-known as the founder of the school of thought called "the theology of the death of God." After having his early education in France, he earned his baccalaureate from Lycee Valence, and in 1948 he received a fellowship to study in the United States. In 1950 he graduated with a master's degree in theology at Princeton University. In 1958 he obtained his doctorate from Princeton University by a thesis on the binomial "religion and aesthetics," entitled "Protestantism and the Arts". He was of the Reform Calvin theology. Professor of Philosophy and Theology for almost three decades in various academic institutes, mostly at Syracuse University in New York, Vahanian was a founding member of the first board of directors of "American Academy of Religion." While teaching Bible and religion from 1958 to 1984, he was named by Syracuse University to the Eliphalet Remington Professor Chair. In 1984 he returned to France to become a professor at the university in Strasbourg, close to the German border. Supporter of the relationship between literature and theology, and between culture and religion, he is considered a "milestone" of Theological Critics, with to his thought on the importance of God in contemporary culture. At the end of his academic career, Vahanian was appointed "Professor Emeritus" of theology at the Université Marc Bloch in Strasbourg. He wrote and published numerous books, including "The Death of God: The Culture of Our Post-Christian Era" in 1962, which is known as his most important work; "God and Utopia: The Church in a Technological Civilization" in 1977; and "Praise of the Secular" in 2008. He died of "natural causes" at age 85. He married and the couple had a son and a daughter, who both earned a PhD in religion at Syracuse University.