ARISTACES (RASTAKES). — The younger son of St. GREGORY the Illuminator, educated in Caesarea of Cappadocia, chose the eremitical life at a young age, until Tiridates, king of Armenia, summoned him from his hermitage in Vałaršapat and had him ordained priest and auxiliary bishop to his father, the first katholikos of Christian Armenia.
A. was also sent by St. Gregory to the Council of Nicaea (cf. Gelzer-Hilgenfeld-Cuntz, Patrum Nicaenorum nomina, Leipzig 1898, pp. LVI, LXII) as the representative of the Armenian Church and brought its canons back to Armenia. When St. Gregory retired to solitude in his final years, he left the katholikos’ see to A., who proved a worthy successor (325–33). He was killed by Arcesilaus, prince of Fourth Armenia, whom he had reproached for his dissolute life.