After graduating the seminary in 1954, he entered secular life, he said, to see what it is and to make friends. He went to Basra, Iraq to work as a teacher and principal in the Armenian school there in the Margil area, near the port. The second year he received an invitation from the Diocese of the Armenian Church of America in New York to continue his education in the US as a clergyman. Accepting, he arrived in 1957 to study at the General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church. Simultaneously he began serving as the choirmaster of St. Gregory the Illuminator Armenian Church in New York.

By marrying Nuart Vartanesian that year, he married into a family with an unbroken chain of 50 clergyman stretching back in time, and then became ordained himself as a priest. Years later, he added another priest to that chain when his son, Alexan, was ordained as Fr. Vasken.

Fr. Kouzouian was assigned to the St. Mary Armenian Church parish in Irvington, NJ (today in Livingston), and served here for 12 ½ years as pastor. During this period, he became involved in the ecumenical movement and also the American civil rights movement, marching a number of times against racism and poverty as part of the National Council of Churches governing board. He met Catholicos of All Armenians Vasken I on several occasions, both during his visit to Echmiadzin in 1962 and during Catholicos Vasken’s prior trip to the United States, so that the latter was aware of his ties with non-Armenian churches.