ARMENIA

ARMENIA - Basilica of Odzum (ca. 8th century).

of Catholicism. He was wrongly accused of having granted, in the Regolamento of the patriarchate, to the laity a role in the election of patriarchs that was condemned by the Reversurus. However, this regulation served for the election of his successors, Paul Peter XI Emmanuelian (1899–1904) and Paul Peter XII Sabaghian (1904–1909), without any protest from Rome. The controversy flared up again during the first three years of the patriarchate of Paul Peter XIII Terzian (1910). In Turkey, the new Ottoman constitution had been proclaimed. Terzian refused to sign a new Regolamento that the laity had already presented to his predecessor Sabaghian, in which they sought to introduce popular vote even in the election of diocesan bishops. Upon coming to Rome, he convened the episcopate in a national synod (1911); Pius X reserved for himself, on that occasion, the appointment of vacant sees. The agitators, this time exclusively laypeople, rebelled; and with the support of the Sublime Porte, they declared Terzian deposed, at least regarding his civil attributes as patriarch (1912). The scandal did not end until the sword of the Turkish massacres of 1915–18, in which five bishops were martyred, three others died in exile; of the 16 dioceses, only three remained; of 250 priests, about 126 were massacred along with a multitude of nuns.

The Armenian episcopal conference held in Rome in 1928, through the munificence of Pius XI, transferred the patriarchal see of Cilicia from Constantinople to Beirut (Lebanon), where today Cardinal Gregory Peter XV Agagianian resides, toward whom all hopes are directed for a spiritual resurrection of the Armenian nation.

#### IV. - THE ARMENIAN RITE.

### ORIGIN

The origin of the Armenian rite is connected with the spread of the Gospel in Armenia, which took place around the year 300, through the work of St Gregory the Illuminator (q.v.), who had been brought up at Caesarea in Cappadocia, and his companions. These brought to Armenia the rite of Caesarea, which in its turn derived from that of Antioch, from which the first missionaries of the same Church had set out. There was then a great affinity between the Antiochene and the Jerusalem rites, both of which were held in high esteem by the Armenians.

### LANGUAGE

With the Cappadocian rite there was also adopted the Greek language in divine worship, because of the lack of an Armenian alphabet. Persia, the rival of Byzantium, during the short period of its invasion of Armenia (368–369), tried to replace Greek with the language of the Syrians, its faithful subjects, and maintained this even after the division of Armenia in 387. The inefficacy of this incomprehensible tongue for the spiritual profit of the people led St Mesrop (Maštoc), the doctor, to create the Armenian script, which he brought into being in 404, basing it on the Greek alphabet. With the help of the patriarch Isaac and his disciples, versed in Greek and Syriac letters, he immediately translated the Holy Scriptures and the liturgical books. After the Council of Chalcedon (q.v.) there occurred the separation of the official Armenian Church (591), which turned towards the Syrians, its instigators of the Monophysite schism, and began to come under their influence also in the rite. Indeed, it was in the 6th century that there took place: the suppression of water in the chalice of the Mass, the return to the ancient union of Christmas with Epiphany, and the addition of the words “qui crucifixus es pro nobis” in the Trisagion, accepted and preserved still among the Jacobites and dissident Armenians.

### DIVINE OFFICE

In the 5th century, in which the Armenian rite properly so called begins, public prayer (in Armenian Pašton, office) was composed of six hours: three, recorded by the historians of the time, recited by the Leontine priests in prison among the Persians: the Nocturns, which took place at midnight; the Matins, which began at cock-crow; and the Vespers, said in the evening; there were also the prayers of the Terce, Sext and Nones, which the Mandacuni enriched with his Admonitions and Lenten Prayers. Stephen, bishop of Iunius, in the 8th century, added to the aforesaid hours two other offices, one At sunrise (Prime), and the other Of repose (Compline), which followed Vespers. But these two, originally proper to that diocese, by the 10th century had become common, so that they could be commented on by Khosrov, bishop of Anzevasi.

In the manuscripts of the breviary of the 14th century we find another hour, which followed that Of repose and was called Hour of peace. It was recited privately, before going to bed, and only later became public. In certain circles all nine offices were recited every weekday, as at Sunia, while other testimonies from the 7th to the 14th century speak

of only seven. The Nocturn was reserved for feast days, and that of the Rising of the Sun for weekdays, alternating in turn with that of the Hour of Peace. This was the system followed by the entire nation. In certain circles and periods two of these were entirely suppressed, as affirmed by Mosè d’Erzinca in the 13th century and others.

The obligatory offices were first recited privately, then publicly in church, according to testimonies from the 8th century onward.

In the 5th century the breviary (Alotanoc or Alotamatoic) was composed of the 150 psalms and the prophetic blessings, for which in the canons of St. Isaac it is defined as: “Office of Psalmody.” This patriarch divided the psalms into eight “canons” or groups, following each with a blessing, a “warning,” and a double “prayer.” The office was then completed with biblical readings and doctrinal explanations. Mandacuni added his warnings, as we have said above; and gradually it grew richer, also with hymns subsequently composed, which formed a separate volume called the Sorocan (Hymnal); while the year-round officiating, with the ceremonies and readings of the Mass, formed the Conocoic (Calendar).

4. Ritual (Maithoc). – The ritual was composed, after the abandonment of the Syrian one, in the 5th century, as evidenced by its affinity with the Greek ritual, owing to the bonds of sympathy that then linked the Armenians to Hellenism. The first true structure of this book is not known to us; but we are certain that it soon began to develop. In the most ancient exemplar of the 11th century preserved at San Lazzaro in Venice, the first chapter is on the Order of the Foundation (and Consecration) of the Church by Giovanni Mandacuni, Katholikós of the Armenians (years 478–90).

The ritual underwent another reform in the 9th century, or rather, all the previously separate blessings were gathered into a single volume to facilitate its use; this work is attributed by later authors to Maithoc, superior of the convent of Sevan, whose name would have been appended to the books, while his disciple Stephen, in the surviving memoir, states that he himself had carried out that work: “I made, he says, this little book in 893” (cod. no. 1571 of S. Lazzaro). Since this memoir is found only in the ritual books, it therefore concerns the same work, which he does not at all think of attributing to his master in the biography included in the same document. It is far from being a “little book,” however, since it contains 45 chapters: it is the sole and precious representative of the ancient, though not certainly primitive, state of the ritual, and was published in English by Conybeare (Oxford 1905).

With the approach of the Western Church to the East and to Armenian Cilicia at the time of the third crusade, the Armenian rite underwent the influence of the Roman rite. Katholikos Gregory IV, in 1185, requested from Pope Lucius III the Roman ritual, which he had translated into Armenian. In Vatican codex Bb 100 (13th century) there are two orders of Baptism: the Armenian and the Latin, and the order of Confirmation, which is administered by the bishop; both are practiced at will, as confirmed by the Council of Sis in 1342. The Latin element is more abundant in the exemplar written at Sis in the 14th century. The council also refers to other Latinizing innovations. This confusion of rites could not endure even in Cilicia, however, because the Greater Armenia never accepted it, and it was suppressed in subsequent ritual books. Instead, the minor orders, unknown in the Armenian Church, were spontaneously accepted and preserved by the entire nation; they were first mentioned by Zacharia Dsordsoretzi in the first quarter of the 14th century, and by the Council of 1342, and were inserted in the aforementioned codex of 1345, along with the unction of bishops and priests and the handing over of vessels, also recalled by the same council and still practiced today; likewise the order of the coronation of kings, used in Cilicia.

The Catholics, moreover, accepted, at Rome’s suggestion, the infusion of water into the wine of the chalice, the separation of Christmas and its related feasts, and Extreme Unction, abandoned since the 10th century, which had already been attempted to be restored in Cilicia; as well as the modification of the Trisagion and the blessing of the oil of the sick, performed by the bishop instead of the priest. In addition to these, many other points of the Latin rite have been adopted by the Catholic clergy in its ritual, which was published by Hassunian (1880) and which diverges from that approved by the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda Fide in 1840 and issued by the Mechitarists of Venice on the basis of ancient texts (1831).

With the Cappadocian rite the Author naturally also adopted the liturgy of the Mass (Patarag), which was called that of St James, formed in Antioch on that preserved in the Apostolic Constitutions, in Greek, and which spread in Syria, Jerusalem, Cappadocia and other parts of Asia Minor (cf. L. Duchesne, Origines du culte chrét., Paris 1925, pp. 65-69). St Basil revised that liturgy in his diocese, giving it his own name; it was known as such by various ancient writers, and accepted by De Meester, at least in its primitive form.

What is of interest here is the fact that this Mass was immediately received also by the Armenian Church, as is shown by a passage attributed to a celebrated Armenian by Faustus, who wrote towards the end of the 4th century, and highlighted by P. Gathircian (SS. Liturgie degli Armeni, pp. 97-132). The Armenian translation of this liturgy, executed in the 5th century, is still preserved in manuscripts together with another medieval version. It was followed by the present one, which since the 10th century has been known in A. by the name of Athanasius. Gathircian found, between the 5th and 8th centuries, traces of this Mass in Armenian literature. A passage common to this and to an “admonition” of Mandacuni suffices for him to conclude that the hand of the same patriarch was at work in that liturgy (op. cit., pp. 323-28). He may be a reviser of the same, which in its essential parts corresponds to that in use today in the Greek-Byzantine rite, under the name of Chrysostom. Its origin is therefore clear; and reasonably F. Cabrol linked it with the Byzantine (in DThC, IX, col. 817). And it is still the same liturgy, at first shorter and later developed in the Greek text and in the Armenian, which was commented on by Khosrov around 950 (Comment. Missae, Venice 1869) and by Narses Lambronensis, archbishop of Tarsus, in 1177 (Comment. Missae, Venice 1846), the latter of whom also “embellished” the missal. After him, it
In addition, the following were introduced: the beginning of the breviary and the Armenian version of the Roman Missal, probably translated along with the ritual, the vesting prayers, the Confiteor in its three parts, which appear for the first time in manuscripts of the 13th century, and the last Gospel (cf. Hatzuni, Messale armena, pp. 14, 15, 25). Alongside this, other liturgies existed in Armenia, and Khosrov saw them without being able to explain all of them; this means that they too were used on certain days. Ukhtanee also makes this clear toward the end of the same 10th century, recalling his meeting with Anania on the banks of the Akhurian River, where «they said the Mass of Domine potentiae (thus begins the Mass), which they say is of Athanasius» (p. 12). It is precisely this distinction that proves that other Masses were in use, of which ten are counted in later manuscripts, in addition to the usual one. Three of these, namely the two translations of the Basilian and the Chrysostomian, contain passages from the ordinary missal, and are then cited by the Councils of 1397 and 1316 (Gathircian, op. cit., p. 352); and an indicator, whose oldest copy dates from 1287 (ms. 1411 of S. Lazzaro), also marks the days of celebration of those of Athanasius (the common one), of Chrysostom, and of Basil (2nd translation), although the Lambronese declares that at his time they did not have the Chrysostomian reform. It may be that this was translated and admitted after his time.

One of the characteristics of the Armenian liturgy is, besides the absence of water from the chalice, the use of unleavened bread, whose use is very ancient and confirmed by all Armenian writers, beginning with Moses II, who, in the letter to Emperor Maurice (591), declared that he did not wish to go to him «so as not to eat bread baked in an oven, or drink hot water,» which were the elements of the Greek Mass. In the ancient Armenian liturgical collections we also find that of the Presanctified, in accordance with the Greek text, while ms. Cilician no. 1411 of S. Lazzaro has modified it with various omissions and the addition of some passages from the ordinary Armenian missal, intercalating it then into the vespers office. It was to be celebrated «on Wednesdays and Fridays of Lent.» It seems that it was arbitrarily practiced in Cilicia, while Greater Armenia did not want to know anything about this «half-Mass» or «Presanctified Mass,» according to Gregory of Tavel 1397.

The sung Mass was originally the only form permitted, and it was reserved not only for feast days but also for Saturday and Sunday, as decreed by the Council of Duin in 645 (can. 6). Later, however, the low Mass also appeared in Armenia, arising from the application of the divine Sacrifice to private individuals during “quarantines,” as mentioned in the canons of the Council of Partaw in 768 (can. 18), and this necessitated daily private celebration. This manner was widespread throughout the country during the Middle Ages, as confirmed by countless inscriptions remaining in ancient churches and by the Lambronese, who also describes its simplest form, with only the celebrant (Comment. Missae, p. 438), or with the assistance of a minister. This system continued until the 17th century and was thereafter preserved only among Catholics.

During Lent, when the liturgy was suspended except on Saturday and Sunday, an “Order of the Prayer of Refection at the ninth hour of Lent” was instead used throughout Armenia; this was the so-called dry Mass, i.e., without the offertory. At that time it had no fixed form of its own, but one of the existing Masses was read, for example, that of St. Athanasius. Later it acquired its own formulary, described in the “Instructions” taken in the 12th century from the Theleni monastery (cod. no. 1372 of St. Lazarus). It was a summary of the ordinary Mass, as found in the breviary of Princess Mariun (14th century) at St. Lazarus (cod. no. 521), and in Vatican codex V 3 (13th century), the latter of which concludes thus: the priest “blesses the bread and distributes it, and they depart,” as in the common liturgy.

In practice, the missal currently used by Catholics is twofold: the one printed in Rome in 1677, with some arbitrary doctrinal corrections by the Armenian priest Barsech; and the one published by Patriarch Hassunian in 1879 for the low Mass, somewhat Latinized. All others are now obsolete.

Parigi 1900, pp. 352-633; L. Petit, s. V. in DThC, I, coll. 1934-68; F. C. Conybeare e A. J. Maclean, Rituale Armenorum and the East Syrian Epiphany rites, Oxford 1905; V. Hatzuni, Hai Diese 1911 tarvoj azgain sinodosi gordeodz meg. (Il rito armeno negli atti del Sinodo nazionale del 1911), Venezia 1919; R. Janin, Les Églises orientales et les Rites Orientaux, Parigi 1922; V. Hatzuni, Potumthin bin hai Torazin (Storia degli antichi usi armeni), Venezia 1924; J. Muyldermans, Le costume liturgique arménien (tratto dal lavoro precedente), Lovanio 1926; J. M. Hanssens, Institutiones liturgicae de ritibus orientalibus. De Missa rituum orientalium, 2 voll., Roma 1930-32; V. Hatzuni, Pataragamatoiz (Messale), con descrizione del rito autentico della Messa, Venezia 1936; C. Gatti e C. Korolevskii, I riti e le Chiese Orientali, Genova-Sampierdarena 1942. Vardan Hatzuni

V. – THE CANON LAW.

Up to the 5th century the canonical repertory of the Armenian Church consisted, as in the other Eastern Churches, of the decisions of ecumenical councils, of pseudo-apostolic collections, and of some national synods.

The canons of Nicaea (325) were introduced through St. Aristakes, who had taken part in them. As for the canons of local councils, we lack contemporary allusions in historical sources; yet it is not unlikely that the canons of this or that local council, in which the Armenians had participated through the agency of Caesarea, were also introduced.

Worthy of mention is the canonical letter, composed of answers to the 9 questions of the Armenians, presumably written around the year 333 by Macarius I of Jerusalem to St. Verthanes the Catholicos (or, according to some, around 564 by Macarius II to Verthanes, bishop of Sunia).

There were also the canonical decisions of the First National Legislative Synod of Aštišat (354-55), where the so-called First Apostolic Canons were adopted, namely the Doctrina Apostolorum composed of 34-35 articles; then the canons of Ephesus (dogmatic) officially introduced into Armenia through the Translators under Catholicos St. Sahak at the national synod of Aštišat around 435; the disciplinary canons of the National Council of Šahapivan (447), and presumably also the so-called Canons of St. Sahak the Great, Soperk Haykakanlı, Venezia 1853, 2ª serie, pp. 71-134 (Armenian), as well as the so-called Second Apostolic Canons, which would be the Canones Apostolorum consisting of 85 articles, published by Funk, and finally the Canons of St. Thaddeus the Apostle.

At the beginning of the 8th century it seems that the first work of systematization or coordination was carried out in the form of an official canonical collection, the Kanonaghirkh, by Giovanni Oznetzi, catholicos called the Philosopher (717–28), of the series of canons introduced or in use up to that time in the Armenian Church and existing in the patriarchal curia. The merit of the work appears to have been the gathering of these norms in chronological order, reconstructing for each series the preface indicating the motivation, the date, and the index, to facilitate their use. Since the original of Oznetzi’s Collection or any contemporary manuscript is lacking, it is not easy to determine precisely which canonical groups it comprised. We can only conjecture, through historical testimony and citations made by contemporary writers, that the said Collection should have contained, in addition to the series of canons cited above, other new groups introduced into the Armenian Church after the 5th century up to his time. Certainly it included the series of canons of the Councils of Ancyra (314), of Neocaesarea (314–25), of Antioch (341), of Laodicea (343–81); perhaps also the so-called canons of St. Athanasius and of the national synods convoked in the city of the patriarchal see at Dwin, namely the 39 canons of Nerses II of Aštarak, the 12 canons of Dwin of 645 under Nerses III, and those of 719 under Giovanni Oznetzi; and perhaps other series of canons of the Holy Fathers that cannot be determined.

This Collection of Oznetzi was further enriched up to the 10th or even 11th century by the addition of other canonical groups of Armenian synods, and perhaps also of Holy Fathers.

Judging from the oldest codex of the said canonical collection that has come down to us (the codex of Julfa, Persia, written in 1098, now preserved in the monastery of the Most Holy Saviour), by the end of the 11th century the Armenian canonical collection, the Kanonaghirkh, contained in addition to the aforementioned groups of canons also the 114 canons called the Second Nicene (actually an eclectic juxtaposition of Nicene and topical canons); the 50 canons of St. Basil of the first series, called the first, and of the second series, called the second; the 21 canons of Sardica (343–44), the 23 canons of Gangra, the 24 canons of the national synod of Partaw (771), the canons attributed to St. Gregory the Illuminator, and many others transmitted under the name of John Mandakuni, of Abraham bishop of the Mamikoneans, and of the national synod of Karin (Erzerum); and under the names of the Holy Fathers and ecclesiastical writers, such as the 27 canons transmitted under the title Fathers Successors of the Apostles, in addition to those under the name of the Apostle Philip, of Clement of Rome and of St. Nectarius, of St. Hippolytus and of St. Epiphanius, St. Ephrem, St. Gregory the Theologian, St. Cyril, St. Dionysius of Alexandria, St. John of Jerusalem, Dionysius the Areopagite, etc., containing one or two canons of lesser importance.

From the 11th century onward, this official collection underwent no further development, so that the decisions of subsequent national synods from the 12th to the 17th centuries remained outside the collection. Almost all the manuscripts of the Kanonaghirkh from the 11th to the 17th centuries retain the same content.

This entire canonical series was compiled in the form of a Nomocanon by the glossator Mechitar Goš (d. 1213) in his Datastanaghirkh (Book of Judgments or Judicial Decisions), where the author, following his own systematic order, cites the text of the canon or of a vóμος and provides a commentary on II. The work was written between 1184 and 1213. This Nomocanon Collection dominated throughout the Middle Ages as a manual of ecclesiastical and civil law, both in Greater Armenia and in Cilicia, where it prevailed rather in the form of the redaction of the Code of Sampat Connetable. It also prevailed in the Armenian colonies of Poland, where a Latin version was ratified by Sigismund I in 1519, and in Tartary, where a Tatar version was made for the Armenian colonies of Astrakhan and Crimea. Indeed, it exerted considerable influence on the Georgian Code in the redaction of Vahtang VI (18th century), in whose third part it was incorporated, and indirectly also on the general Code of Tsar Nicholas I in 1835, when it was decided that the Russian Senate would use the aforementioned Code of Vahtang VI.
The Canonical Collection of the Kanonaghirkh, like that of the Nomocanon Datastanaghirkh by Mechitar Goš, being closed by the end of the 12th century, the disciplinary acts of subsequent Armenian synods or patriarchal encyclicals from the 13th to the 16th centuries remained outside the aforementioned collections. Among these acts, worthy of mention are the Patriarchal Encyclical of St. Nerses Glajese (1166–73), of Constantine I Katholikos (1220–67), the Acts of the Armenian Synods of Sis in the years 1204, 1246, 1307 (the last under Gregory VII of Anazarba), the Synod of Adana in the year 1316, which confirmed the Acts of the previous synod (1307), the Synod of Sis in 1342; as well as the Constitutions of the monastery of Zake in 1270 and of the Synod of Jerusalem in 1651. The Synods of Sis in the year 1307 and of Adana in the year 1316, being synods of Latinizing tendency, were not accepted by the eastern vartapet. It was the period in which the influence of Latin discipline had begun through the frequent correspondence and embassies between the Roman Pontiffs and the patriarchs, kings, and princes of Armenian Cilicia during the centuries of the Crusades. This influence, though contested, grew in direct proportion to the penetration of Western missionaries—first the Franciscans and Dominicans, then, after the 16th century, other Orders (Jesuits, Theatines, Carmelites, Capuchins, etc.), and finally the Armenian alumni of the Urban College and the Armenian College of Lviv.

At the beginning of the 18th century, as a consequence of the official and definitive Armenian schism, Armenian Canon Law bifurcated into: Catholic Armenian Canon Law and non-Catholic and dissident Canon Law. The latter consists mainly of the traditional ancient Collection of Kanonaghirkh, the canons of Armenian synods outside the Collection, the book Datastanaghirkh by Mechitar Goš, and the synodal or extrasynodal decisions of the patriarchs of Etchmiadzin. The encyclical and private letters of the katholikoi of Etchmiadzin—Simeon of Yerevan (1763–80), Lukas Karnetsi (1780–99), Hovsep Arluthian (1800–1801), and Daniel I (1801–1808)—are collected in Alaneantz sac. Kiut, Archive of Armenian History (in Armenian), vols. III, IV, IX, Tiflis 1893–99.

Armenian-Catholic canon law, on the other hand, even after the partial restoration (1741) of a new Armenian-Catholic hierarchy in the see of the patriarchate of Cilicia (because the majority of the Armenian-Catholic ecclesiastical territory, as regards spiritual matters, remained under the Latin patriarchal vicariate of Constantinople until the year 1830), produced no noteworthy canonical works throughout the 18th century until the mid-19th century. The scattered and isolated nuclei of Armenian Catholics throughout the Ottoman Empire were governed, apart from the most well-known canonical institutions through tradition, “according to the clear and organic principles of Western canon law,” better known both to the hierarchy under which they were directly subject (the patriarchal vicariate of Constantinople; the patriarchate of Cilicia; the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda) and to the missionaries themselves.
ARMENIA - Monastery of Sanahin (11th c. approx.).

Europeans, or Armenian pupils of the Urban College. The new hierarchy, moreover, was concerned primarily with orthodoxy and dogmatic integrity and with sustaining Catholic missions amid persecutions, and, due to a lack of knowledge of ancient traditions, generally viewed those same traditions with suspicion. On Mount Lebanon synods were convened that were exclusively elective; for discipline, recourse was had to custom, albeit very vaguely understood, and more to Western canon law. Under Msgr. Nurigian and Msgr. Marusci, the first two Armenian Catholic primates of Constantinople, measures of a rather liturgical character were taken.

In 1848, during the apostolic visitation of Msgr. Innocenzo Ferrieri, certain resolutions were adopted (Propaganda Archive, Acts of 1849–50, text of the 37 Dubbi, ff. 92–93; Rescripts, ff. 81–91); and in 1851 the episcopal conference of Primate Hassun was held (ibid., Acts of 1853, part III, Ponenza Stato della Nazione Armena). In the same year (16–18 Oct.), the Armenian Synod of Bzommar was convened on Mount Lebanon under the presidency of Michael-Peter VIII Katholikos (Mansi, XL, cols. 890 ff.), whose acts, however, when examined in Rome, were not approved, either because they were incomplete or perhaps rather because the synodal fathers themselves failed to achieve union. In 1867 there was the episcopal conference of Rome (Mansi, XL, 953–1018). The Armenian Synod of Constantinople, held in July–October 1869, convoked by decree of 4 April of Patriarch Hassun at the suggestion of Pius IX in the letters Commissum humilitati and Libentissime certe of 1869, to restore Armenian Catholic discipline, was prepared with serious study by a commission composed of competent theologians and canonists such as Azarian Vartapet, Malachia Ormanian, etc., and by eminent figures of the Armenian-Catholic clergy, both secular and regular, who, alongside knowledge of Latin discipline, were also familiar with ancient Armenian canonical sources and traditions. When the synod was on the verge of concluding, its sessions were abruptly suspended, the fathers having to depart for the First Vatican Council. It must be acknowledged: this was the first Armenian-Catholic synod conducted with broad vision, in grand style, by truly competent persons such as those who composed the three preparatory commissions (theological, canonical, liturgical). The acts were never promulgated; they survive only in the few lithographed copies that served the synodal fathers themselves. It is a precious document for penetrating the mind and outlook of the prelates of an era marked by heated disciplinary controversies and the challenge of reconciling Eastern disciplinary institutions and privileges with Western ones, so as to infuse the former with the dynamism and vitality of the latter.

The Synod of Chalcedon (1890), convoked by Patriarch Azarian, was nothing more than the perfection of the acts of the 1869 Synod of Constantinople. Azarian Vartapet, who had been the guiding spirit of the Synod of Constantinople and one of its principal promoters, at Chalcedon merely promulgated, after certain revisions and additions, under his own patriarchal authority, the very acts of the 1869 Synod, pending papal approval, which, however, was unfortunately not obtained. The acts, comprising a total of 928 canons, were published in the year 1910 under the editorship of Sirounian Alessio Vartapet. It is noteworthy that this was the most organic, best elaborated, and best representative synod of Armenian disciplinary institutions, adapted to the needs of modern times. To anyone who studies, even cursorily, the acts of these last two Catholic synods (of Constantinople and Chalcedon), the great service rendered by the learned historical, theological, liturgical, and canonical publications, produced from the end of the 18th century through the 19th century, by the two Mekhitarist monasteries of Venice and Vienna, immediately leaps to the eye—works such as those of Ciamcian, G. B. Aucher, Avédikian, Gathircian, etc., which created the first current of trust and respect toward the ancient sources of Armenian tradition.

The National Synod of Rome of 1911, convoked by Patriarch Terzian with the assistance of a body of illustrious Latin theologians and canonists who, in the preparatory commission, represented the preponderant part compared to the Armenian consultants, is the synod currently in force and use within the Armenian Patriarchate of Cilicia, since it was approved in common form by the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda Fide. From the standpoint of the expression of Armenian canon law, it has very limited value, both because of the extensive adoption of Western principles and institutions and because of the predominance of the dogmatic and hortatory part, in which the dispositive section is almost lost.

On the other hand, it must be noted that, given the almost rudimentary knowledge of Armenian canonical tradition, none of these Catholic Armenian conferences or synods of the 19th–20th centuries represents the ancient disciplinary tradition in its entirety, not even the Synod of Chalcedon, although it was the one that best realized the effort to restore traditional Armenian canonical discipline. The Synod itself confesses this in canons 117, 118, and 216 (Armenian ed.).

Per il Diritto Canonico moderno delle chiese dissidenti di Egmazin, cf. Aivarat (riv. arm. di Egmazin), 1882, p. 83; per le risoluzioni del Sinodo sotto Giorgio IV circa i doveri dei vicari foranei, vedi la stessa rivista 1887, pp. 47, 93, 140, 288 ecc.; e negli anni successivi vedere i titoli Archiv. del Beat. Patriarca, e la Cronaca del Sinodo. Questa rivista è ricca di notizie circa il diritto canonico dissidente.

Studi: F. Bischoff, Das alte Recht der Armenier in Lemberg, Vienna 1862; A. Balay, Historia Dogmatis Catholici apud Armenus, Vienna 1878; A. Pipas, L'Autorità legislativa degli armeni della città di Elisabetopoli di Transilvania, in Pazmaveb 1891, pp. 104, 172, 373; 1893, pp. 335 ecc.; A. Meghavorian, Etude ethnoge, juridique sur la famille et le mariage arménien, Ginevra 1895; G. Daëan, Doctrina Apostolorum (in arm.), Vienna 1896; V. Hatzuni, Cod. can. or., Fonti, fasc. VIII, Città del Vaticano 1932, pp. 141-66; G. Amaduni, Cod. can. or., Fonti, 2ª serie, fasc. XII, Monachismo, Venezia 1940; V. Hatzuni, L'autore della lettera a Verthanes à Macario I e non II, in Pazmaveb (riv. arm.), 89 (1931), fasc. I-II.

Infine si trovano molte notizie utili riguardanti il diritto canonico armeno, negli studi circa il diritto armeno civile, come: M. Brosset, Notice sur le Code Glorien, manuscrit de la biblia Royale, in Nouveau journal Asiatique, 3 (1829), pp. 177-201; id., Détails sur le droit public arménien, extraits du code glorien du roi Wakhhang, in Nous, journ. Asiatique, 9 (1832), pp. 21-30; A. von Haxthausen, Transilvania, 2 tomi in 1 vol., Lipsia 1856 (contiene molte interessanti notizie circa il diritto armeno comparato con quello dei Georgiani, ecc.); M. Brosset, Rapport sur un manuscrit arménien de Mechitar Gos, in Bull. de l'Acad. impér. des sciences de Saint-Pétersb., cl. hist. phil., 6 (1849), pp. 380-382; J. Kohler, Das Recht der Armenier, in Zeitschrift f. Vergl. Rechtswissenschaft, 7 (1887), pp. 385-436; M. Ghazarian, Armenien unter der Arabischen Herrschaft bis zur Entstehung des Bagratidenreiches, Marburgo 1903, p. 87; H. Thopdschian, Politische und Kirchengeschichte Armeniens unter Alet I und Sinopad I, Berlino 1905, pp. 96-215; V. Aptowitzer, Beiträge zur mosaf-