Simeon I of Yerevan or Simeon Yerevantsi (Armenian: Սիմէոն Ա Երեւանցի;^{[lower-alpha 1]} 1710 – July 26, 1780) was the Catholicos of All Armenians from 1763 to 1780. In 1771, he founded a printing press at the Etchmiadzin Cathedral, the first in Armenia.^[1][2] According to Rouben Paul Adalian, the pontificate of Simeon I of Yerevan marked the reemergence of Etchmiadzin as a "truly important center of Armenian national affairs".^[3]

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Simeon I was born in 1710 in Yerevan, then under Safavid Iranian rule.^[1][4][5] According to his contemporaries and 19th-century sources, his family was of noble origin.^[6] He received his education at the monastic school in Etchmiadzin, where he studied with his predecessor as catholicos, Hakob Shamakhetsi, and eventually joined the teaching staff.^[1][7] As a legate of the Holy See of Etchmiadzin, he travelled to Istanbul, New Julfa and Madras, the last of which was an important center of Armenian intellectual activity at the time.^[1]

He was elected catholicos at Etchmiadzin in 1763.^[1] At the time, due to the remoteness of Etchmiadzin in a frontier province of Iran, the Armenian Patriarchate of Istanbul had become the most important see of the Armenian Church.^[1] Simeon took active efforts in order to increase the role of the See of Etchmiadzin and reassert its primacy over the other sees, including by establishing a printing press in 1771, the very first on the territory of historical Armenia.^[1] Four years later he established a paper factory to meet the growing needs and costs of the printing press. He furthermore improved the monastic school, which would become a major center of theological learning in the 19th century.^[1]

Catholicos Simeon was particularly hostile towards Armenian Catholics and sought to prevent the spread of Catholicism among Armenians, frequently and harshly criticizing them in his written works.^[8] He was opposed to the activities of Indian Armenians Shahamir Shahamirian and Joseph Emin, who envisioned the reestablishment of an independent Armenian state.^[9][10]

Simeon I died on July 26, 1780, on the holiday of Vardavar. In accordance with his wishes, his former student Ghukas Karnetsi was elected his successor as catholicos.^[11]