Grigoris Balakian was born in Tokat in the Ottoman Empire, and graduated from the Sanasarian College in Erzurum. He had been studying architecture in Germany for two years and got a degree in civil engineering. He became a celibate priest ordained under the monastic name Grigoris Balakian. On 24 April 1915 he was among the group of 250 leading Armenian figures of Constantinople who were arrested and deported.