Armenia

ARMENIA. - Historical region of western Asia, comprised between the Pontic-Transcaspian depressions to the N. (valley of the Kura) and the Mesopotamian to the S. (upper Tigris) and with indefinite limits (which varied greatly over time) both to the W. and to the E., where it joins respectively the Anatolian plateau (basin of the Kara Su) and the Iranian plateau (middle Aras).

I. - GEOGRAPHICAL NOTES.

It is entirely traversed by high mountains (Mt. Sipan 4176 m.), among which volcanic edifices are frequent (Mt. Ararat 5156 m.), which rise from a plateau already elevated in itself (1800-2000 m.), and deeply cut by the many watercourses that originate there and diverge in several directions (Kura, Aras, Çoruh, Euphrates, Tigris). The lakes are numerous, of which the largest are those of Van and Urmia, salt, and that of Gökçe, of fresh water. The climate, distinctly continental, is harsh, with rigid and long winters (nine months at Van), hot summers (maxima to the SW.) and arid, short intermediate seasons, and in general not very abundant precipitation (but with long persistence of snows on the higher areas). The population, in general rather sparse (density does not on average reach 20 inhabitants per sq. km.), is concentrated by preference on the bottom of the intermontane basins, that is, in the less elevated areas and those better favored by the climate. Given the natural vocation of the country (steppes), livestock raising prevails over agriculture, limited in substance to cereals (wheat in some zones up to 2000 m.), to the mulberry, to the vine and to fruit trees (apple, apricot); the productions exceeding even the modest local needs are restricted to wools, hides, silks and fruit; industrial activity does not know modern forms, perpetuating a modest traditional craftsmanship. There is nevertheless no lack of mineral resources of some magnitude (iron, copper, manganese, arsenic, silver, gold, sulfur, rock salt, etc.). The configuration of the terrain makes communications difficult: moreover the political frontiers divide the country into three watertight compartments: Turkish Armenia to the W., the Iranian (Persian) to the SE. and the Russian (Soviet) to the NE.

(propr. Euc. Catt.)

The latter is the only one that rightly preserves the name of A., constituted as it is into a federated Republic (ASSR) whose population is formed for about 85% by Armenians. The territory of the ASSR nevertheless extends somewhat beyond the Armenian plateau. In the other two zones the Armenians, who at the end of the last century moreover represented barely 2/5 of the inhabitants of the entire historical region (reduced as they were in number following the slaughters, massacres, and mass deportations that occurred repeatedly, and also in the last two centuries), have been substantially suppressed and replaced by the neighboring Turkish, Kurdish, or Tatar populations. The Armenians form a branch of the Indo-European stock; herders or farmers, sedentary and peaceful, in their vast majority Christians, they have emigrated in good number to various cities of the Levant, where they practice commerce and banking with skill.

The most important Armenian urban centers are today Erivan (200 thousand inhabitants) and Leninakan (formerly Alexandropol; 70 thousand inhabitants) in the ASSR; a certain number of Armenians is also found at Erzerum (30 thousand inhabitants: ancient Arx Romanorum) in Turkish A.; v. also ARMENA REPUBBLICA SOVIETICA.

Giuseppe Carsci

II. — HISTORICAL NOTES.

Politically A., from the beginning of historical times, had two great divisions: Greater A., Lesser A. on either side of the Euphrates, to the east and to the west. Greater A., that is, A. proper, was in ancient times formed of 15 provinces, each of which was subdivided into many cantons each governed by dynastic families with a feudal system that enjoyed relative independence under the high dominion of a king of A. It lived with alternating fortunes of glorious independence under its own kings or of dominion controlled by the Arsacid and Parthian Persians and by the Byzantines. It was at the end of the 4th century divided in two between Persia and the Byzantine empire, preserving relative national autonomy, at least in some province, until the 14th century; after which, divided first between Persia and Turkey, in the 18th century it had its definitive partition among Turkey, Russia, and Persia. At the Congress of Versailles, after the world war of 1914-19, it formed for an ephemeral period a national republic with its capital at Erivan.

In the 4th century Greater A. had a territory equal to France, with 20 satrapies, 620 districts, 40,000 communes, and could put 300,000 men under arms.

From the most remote antiquity A. had on its soil various agglomerations of peoples, being a central point where the different migrations came to clash. Ethnographically it corresponds, in almost the entirety of the nation, to the Aryan race in the Caucasian branch with infiltrations of Turanian elements from the north and Leuco-Syrian and Phrygian elements from the west, as well as Semitic elements from Mesopotamia.

The same infiltration occurs also in the structure of its language, which has an Indo-European basis and forms the connecting link between the two great western and eastern branches of the Indo-Germanic family.

With the Arab invasion in 636 and the fall of the Persian empire in 652, A. always preserved a largely autonomous if not independent life, until Asciot, of the glorious family of the Bagratids, founded the new dynasty in 885. This period of the Bagratids was one of cultural splendor of which the ruins of the marvelous churches of Anl still speak. In this period a extraordinary phenomenon begins: the Armenians, losing as a nation their territorial independence, form on their native soil seven small kingdoms and an eighth in Georgia, besides some minor princes, honored, respected, or feared by their rulers, while outside the national soil, as individuals, they occupy positions of the first order in the empire of Constantinople.

Lesser A., instead, was formed by the part of Asia Minor situated between the Euphrates and the Halys river.

From the 10th century until the end of the 14th the name of Lesser A. was inherited by a new independent kingdom founded in Cilicia until in its turn this too was invaded by the Egyptians first and then by the Turks in the 15th century.

The centuries from the 15th until the 18th were for the Armenian nation centuries of obscure fortune under the yoke and domination of the Mongols, Tatars, Persians, and Ottomans until the reign of Peter the Great and Catherine of Russia, who took an interest in the deplorable conditions of the Armenian people and took advantage of it in the end for the conquest of Upper A. by Russia. Well known are the treaties of Adrianople, of S. Stefano, the Congress of Berlin, the convention of Cyprus, etc., the bloody events of Zeitun and of Sassun, and the periodic partial or general massacres perpetrated in A. by the dominant Turkish government through and because of the barbarous Kurdish hordes.

Giovannino Aucher

III. — THE ARMENIAN CHURCH.

PERIOD I: Evangelization of A. — Christianity penetrated into A., well before the missionary work of St. Gregory the Illuminator, by way of Edessa, through the southern regions of Vaspurakan, of Taron, and of Sophene; and from Lesser A., territory of the Roman empire, through Caesarea, Melitene, and Pontus. And already we find it spread there at the beginning of the 2nd century. Tertullian in the Adversus Iudaeos, written ca. 200, cites among the Christian countries, together with Persia, Media, Mesopotamia, also A. This pre-Gregorian Christianity of A. will also have had its pastors. The allusion of Eusebius (VI, 46) to a letter of Dionysius of Alexandria written around 249 to Merhujan (Μερικάνης) bishop of A. and to those κατά Ἀρμενίαν, in which he would impart instructions concerning the lapsi under Decius, seems to apply rather to Greater A. (according to Ališan, Golzer, Ormanian, etc.), than to Lesser A., then forming part of the Roman empire and territorially dependent on Caesarea of Cappadocia.

PERIOD II: St. Gregory the Illuminator. Christianity as state religion between the years 295-300. — The existence of pre-Gregorian Christianity does not obscure the merit of St. Gregory, universally recognized as the first apostle of A., sole author of the national conversion and of the ecclesiastical organization of the Armenian Church; called for this reason Illuminator (v. GREGORIO ILLUMINATORE). His activity unfolded over some twenty-five years, precisely while the last persecution was raging in the Roman empire, and had as its fruit, thanks to the help of the most pious king Tiridates, the destruction of paganism, the proclamation of Christianity as state religion, the erection of various churches with suitable economic endowment, the hierarchical organization of the Church, with the katholikós at its head. Since celibacy of the higher clergy was not yet law among the Armenians, the successor of St. Gregory was chosen from among the members of his own Parthev family, beginning with his son St. Aristakes who took part in the Council of Nicaea (325), followed by his brother St. Varthanes, who saw his life in danger because of the machinations of the surviving pagan priesthood. He was succeeded in his turn by his son St. Hussigh who fell victim to the vengeance of the Armenian king Tiran (347) whom he had forbidden entry into the church for his unworthy conduct.

After an interval of two katholikói not belonging to the Parthev family, there ascended the katholikossal throne St. Nerses, a descendant of the same family, to whom is due a radical reorganization of the Armenian Church, on the example of that of Caesarea of Cappadocia, in the Council of Aštišat (365), the first historically known council of the Armenian Church.

There Christian marriage was regulated by affirming monogamy with the exclusion of concubinage, of union between relatives by marriage, and of divorce; superstitious rites of lamentations funeral lamentations were replaced by Christian funerals; canons were prescribed against criminals, against immorality, for the equitable use of civil power, of the treasury, etc.; many charitable and educational institutions were founded: schools, orphanages, foundling hospitals, leprosariums; monasticism was developed; episcopal sees and canonries were erected so that the clergy might dwell separated from their families; in short, the Nersessian reform aimed at making the principles of the faith and the rules of Christian conduct penetrate the heart of the masses, and it is this reform that has left its mark on the entire subsequent religious history of the country.

His work as a reformer drew upon St. Nerses the hostility of King Arshak and forced him to withdraw to his estate at Ashtishat, while the king replaced him with a certain Ciumak. St. Nerses, having returned to his see after the king's death, was killed (373) by the successor Pap, who likewise appointed, without the intervention of Caesarea, a certain Hussak of the Albianos family. The latter, having against him the Armenian episcopate and the Synod of Caesarea, which struck the katholikossal see with an interdict, had only a limited and negative activity, lasting until 379, when St. Sahak of the Parthev family, surnamed the Great, ascended the katholikossal see, under whom normal jurisdiction was restored.

Sahak, called by Khosrov III, king of Armenia, to occupy the Armenian see, was truly the genius of his time and of his country, which was then in a sad political condition, because precisely at his accession the negotiations between Theodosius the Great and Shapur II, begun in 374, had ended ten years later with the iniquitous partition of Armenia between Byzantium, which received the western or Greek part, and Ctesiphon, which received the eastern or Persian part corresponding to two thirds of the entire territory. It is precisely from this partition that many of the political and religious evils that subsequently afflicted Armenia derived.

Sahak's principal merit was to have made the liturgy Armenian, until then celebrated in Greek or Syriac, according to the regions, thanks to the invention of the Armenian alphabet by St. Mesrop (v.); to have translated, with the help of valiant Armenian monks, Holy Scripture and a vast patriotic literature, thus offering the Armenians, subject to foreign political and cultural influences, the means of maintaining national unity; to have replaced the obligation of recourse for episcopal cheirotonia and katholikossal investiture to the see of Caesarea, which had become morally impossible for political reasons, with communion in faith alone with the see of Constantinople, which was already coming to absorb the prerogatives of the exarchates of Heraclea in Thrace, as of Caesarea in Cappadocia.

Under his successors throughout the whole of the 5th century no controversy is to be lamented either concerning the formula of Chalcedon or concerning Armenian autocephaly, which by then was already taking shape as customary law.

EPOCH III: From the 6th century to the year 1065. — In the year of the Council of Chalcedon (451) the Armenians were under arms defending their faith and their religious liberty against the Mazdeism of the Persian rulers, a struggle that lasted until 484. During this time they had no possibility of informing themselves from authentic sources about the ecumenical council that had created so many controversies in the East. Only in 506 did the emperor Anastasius I, having victoriously concluded the campaign against Qawad, send the Henotikon to the katholikos Babken (490-514) by means of Severian messengers. Having convoked at Dvin, the patriarchal see, a council in the year 506-507, the katholikos anathematized Nestorius and Nestorianism and accepted the Henotikon. It does not appear from contemporary documents that he also anathematized the Council of Chalcedon. And in fact the two synodal letters that bear his name do not condemn the dyophysitism of Chalcedon but only the separation into two persons (prosopa) willed by Nestorius.

The anti-Chalcedonian tendencies of the Armenian Church seem to have begun under the katholikos Movses II, Elivardetzi (574-604), who had refused to submit to the imposition of the emperor Maurice, who, having obtained from Khosrov Parwes in exchange for services rendered almost the whole of eastern Armenia, except the two provinces of Vaspurakan and Sunia and the city of Dvin, seat of the katholikos, imposed on the Armenian bishops who had become his subjects "the cooked bread and hot water of the Greeks" in the liturgy, and against the opposing katholikos appointed a new katholikos in the person of Hovhannes (John) III (592-610), who the year before had accepted the Chalcedonian formula in the first Synod of Karin.

Thus the year 591-92 would mark the beginning of the official formation of an anti-Chalcedonian (rather than Monophysite) Armenian faction at Dvin through the work of Movses II, although it had against it the great mass of the Armenian episcopate and people. This schism was consummated in the year 608-609 by Abraham I, who in an encyclical letter of his, while prefacing the orthodox symbol and accepting the first three ecumenical councils, forbade the Armenians to communicate in sacris and in c'cilibus with the Iberians, with the Greeks and with all who followed the decisions of Chalcedon; and practically confused the dyophysitism of the Chalcedonian formula with the Nestorian separation into two persons. From this date begins the state of fluctuation of the Armenian Church concerning the dyophysite Chalcedonian formula, while in substance admitting its orthodox content. This state of flux and reflux with regard to the IV ecumenical Council and its developed christological formula lasted until the 11th century, when, the patriarchal see having been transferred to Cilicia and contacts with Rome established, information about the Council of Chalcedon became more precise and authentic explanations of the formula clarified its meaning.

The katholikoi who succeeded one another until the middle of the 11th century are found now favorable, now opposed to the Council of Chalcedon: opposition often determined by the political antagonism between Armenians and Greeks. This is not the place to examine the conduct of individuals, but recapitulating the four and a half centuries of history from the schism of Abraham I (608) to the enthronement (1065) of Gregory II Vkayaser, first katholikos of Cilicia, out of 33 patriarchs 6 are anti-Chalcedonian, 5 are moreover persecutors of Catholics, but 15 show themselves tolerant and 7 are convinced promoters of union with Rome.

EPOCH IV: Cilician period - From Gregory II Vkayaser to Gregory Mussabeghiantz (1065-1441). — From the 10th century onward begins the emigration of the Armenian people, pressed by Asiatic hordes, toward the interior of the Byzantine empire, ceding to it the most exposed fiefs and receiving in exchange territories situated in the interior. The center of immigration was Cilicia, in which, however, the Armenians did not allow themselves to be absorbed by the Greeks, but tenaciously maintained their own principles, to the point of forming in the 12th century the independent Armenian kingdom of Cilicia. Naturally the Church also followed this migratory movement, and the katholikossal see, after various transfers from Dvin, established itself definitively at Sis, capital of the kingdom of Cilicia, in 1294. From this see also depended the Armenians of eastern Armenia who had remained under the political dominion of the Seljuk Turks.

This epoch of Armenian ecclesiastical history is characterized thus: political emancipation from Byzantium is followed by religious emancipation and orientation toward Rome, facilitated also by trade across the Mediterranean; a greater breadth of views in theological questions becomes explicit; as for disciplinary reforms, these proceed with prudence so as not to offend the less cultured mentality of eastern Armenia, thus avoiding transforming their distrust into formal schism.

The relations of the katholikoi of this epoch with the Roman Pontiffs are frequent and close. Gregory II after 1074 he went to Rome to pay homage to Gregory VII; Gregory III (v.) was in relations with the popes Honorius II, Innocent II and Eugene III; Gregory IV was in epistolary relations with Lucius III and Clement III; Gregory VI paid homage to Innocent III and received the pallium from him; James I was invited by Pope Gregory X to the Council of Lyon; and so on down to the katholikós Constantine V, who took part in the Council of Florence (1439). At this Council, even though the sessions had ended, the Pope convoked a public session on 22 Nov. 1439 for the union of the Armenians, who accepted not only the dogmatic points signed by the Greeks, but also the new disciplinary proposals.

These Catholic Armenians, representing the preponderant mass of the people in the 11th-15th centuries, and the official Church headed by the katholikós, always found themselves between two extremist currents: the Eastern Armenians, too attached to Armenian ritual and disciplinary traditions, and the Uniatists, represented and directed by the Fratres Unitores, the Armenian branch of the Dominican Fratres Peregrinantes, founded around 1330 by John Kernetzi, hegumen of the cenobium of Kerna, with the help of the Dominican Blessed Bartholomew of Bologna. The Armenian writer Mechitar Aparanetzi, a moderate Unitore, attests in a work of his (1410) the reality of this situation.

PERIOD V: From the creation of the patriarchal see of Etchmiadzin to the definitive schism (1441-1700). - The fall of the Armenian kingdom of Cilicia, on 16 Apr. 1375, by the arms of the Mamluks of Egypt, brought with it the decline of the katholikossal see of Sis and at the same time favored the movement of the Eastern Armenians, eager to return the see itself to its ancient residence of Valaršapat (Eğmiadzin) in Greater Armenia and therefore ready, as Thomas Vartapet Mezobetzki did, to accuse the see of Sis of excessive subservience to Rome and to the Greeks, of accepting the dyophysite formulas, and of ritual and disciplinary innovations. Gregory IX Mussabeghiantz (1440-52) had the canonicity of his election contested, and he himself was invited to go from Sis to Eğmiadzin for the electoral synod. Upon his refusal, Thomas convoked for 1 December 1441 the Synod in which, with the participation of 13 bishops and as many vartapets, 11 proxies of impeded bishops and many hegumens, Kirakos Virapetzki was elected. The latter immediately issued the encyclical by which he absolved from the anathemas hurled by the katholikós of Sis. Thus arose the katholikossal see of Eğmiadzin, alongside the already existing sees of Sis and of Althamar, the latter already dissident from Sis and now subject to Eğmiadzin. Subsequently, between the two sees of Eğmiadzin and Sis a modus vivendi was reached, concluded at the Synod of Jerusalem of 1651 (where an Armenian patriarchate detached from that of Sis, of merely archiepiscopal rank, had already been constituted in 1311), whereby Eğmiadzin retained the title of supreme patriarchal see, while the jurisdiction of Sis remained limited to Cilicia with a greatly reduced episcopate. A third scission of the supreme Armenian ecclesiastical authority occurred in 1461 when Mohammed II created the Armenian patriarchate of Constantinople, whose titular was conferred the prerogatives of religious-civil head of all the Armenians of the Ottoman empire, including also the Chaldeans, the Nestorians and the Copts. Although the hierarchical authority always remained with the katholikós of Eğmiadzin, one understands how the de facto authority of the patriarch of Constantinople, as head of the Armenian nation (millet), was very great and how many coveted it and finally felt spurred to independence with respect to the katholikós of Eğmiadzin.

The five Armenian sees, three katholikossal and two patriarchal, continued more or less uninterruptedly in communion both with the Roman See and with the Catholic current, notably aided by the new Latin missions of the Jesuits established in Aleppo in 1626, in Ispahan in 1653, in Erzerum in 1685-91; of the Capuchins (Aleppo 1627, Ispahan 1644), which had been added to those of the Fratres Unitores and of the Carmelites.

The relations and communion with Rome of the see of Eğmiadzin date historically from the middle of the 16th century, before the pontificate of Gregory XIII. Stephen V Salmastetzki (1548-59) presented to Paul III his own submission and that of his episcopate; Michael of Sebaste (1546-68) sent an embassy to Pius IV; Gregory XII of Eğmiadzin made his profession of faith to Leonardo bishop of Sidon sent to him by Gregory XIII, who issued the bull Romana Ecclesia (13 Oct. 1584) exalting Armenian fidelity, and decreed the erection in Rome of an Armenian College; Melchisedech (1593-1627) sent to Paul V his profession of faith, Movses III Sunetzki (1630-33) did likewise with Urban VIII and James IV of Giulfa (1656-80) with Alexander VII; Nahapet of Edessa (1691-1704) obtained from Innocent XII as a gift a beautiful throne, a grateful acknowledgment of the profession of faith sent to him; Alexander I of Giulfa (v.; 1707-15) professes with a letter to Clement XI his adherence to the primacy while lamenting the conduct of the Latin missionaries; the last two professions of faith of the katholikói of Eğmiadzin are those of Azvazadur of Hamadan to Innocent XIII in 1717 and of Karapet Ulnetzki (1726-30) to Benedict XIII; with Lazarus II of Giahuk (1737-51) and Simon of Erivan (1763-80) begins the series of the patriarchs of Eğmiadzin intolerant and adversaries of Rome.

EPOCA VI: The definitive schism. The Armenian-Catholic Patriarchate of Cilicia (18th-20th centuries). - One might have hoped that the slow but fruitful work carried on by the supporters of the Catholic current, made up of so many Armenian prelates and vartapets (among whom stood out at the close of the 17th-18th centuries the two figures of Ardzivian Abraham, future katholikós of Cilicia, and Mechitar of Sebaste founder of the Mechitarist monks), by the alumni of the Urban College (among whom were prominent Kaciatur vart. Arakelian and Melchiorre Tasbas archbishop of Merdin) and by the Latin missionaries, would end with the definitive triumph of Catholic truth; but a new fact came to crush the whole work: the persecutions launched by the patriarchs of Constantinople.

The fanatic Efrem in 1701, having deposed Melchisedech Sufi, patriarch of Constantinople, as a supporter of the Catholics, ascended the throne for the third time, and began on 15 July 1701 the persecutions against the Catholics, so-called Franks. He was succeeded by other no less relentless persecutors: Avetik, supported by his Turkish friend Feyzullah effendi, John of Smyrna (1707-1708), under whom the priest Ter-Komitas Kheomurgean suffered martyrdom on 5 Nov. 1707, proclaimed blessed in 1929 by Pius XI; Sahak Abucetzki (1707, 1708, 1714), John Ganzaketzki (1714-15), John Bališetzki or Kolot (1715-41). Many Catholics sealed their faith by undergoing exile or death in prison, among whom stand out the figure of Msgr. Melchiorre Tasbas (cf. Elia Ibn al-Qsir, Une page de l'hist. de l'Eglise, de Mardin, trans. from the Arabic by Scheil O. P., in Revue de L'Orient Chrét., 1 (1896), pp. 43-87), and of the bishop Azvazadur, who died in prison.

(Venice, fol. pp. Mechitarists)

As long as Catholics were not persecuted, the Armenian churches were attended promiscuously, especially where Latin churches were lacking, as was the condition of almost all the provinces of the Ottoman Empire. The enduring union of Etchmiadzin with Rome made this explicable. Once the persecutions broke out, the first replies were issued by the Supreme Tribunal of the Holy Office regarding communication in sacris for the cases of Turkey: on 9 September 1704 to the Capuchin Fathers of Constantinople, on 15 March 1706 to the priest Melchiorre Tasbas, on 22 February 1707 to a certain Armenian merchant; on 21 June 1708 to a certain Mghertic of Aleppo, and all still private; on 28 November 1709 to the missionaries of Isfahan. While in Persia Catholics were permitted to erect their own churches, the Ottoman constitution, which recognized a single Armenian millet and that one exclusively dependent on the patriarchs of Constantinople, made impossible the separation of Armenian Catholics into their own buildings of worship. This circumstance, combined with a certain hope of calm from the hurricane of persecutions, induced a notable current of Catholic missionaries to interpret the reply of the Holy Office of 1709 to the VI Dubium of the missionaries of Isfahan as not yet applicable to the cases of Turkey. However, as the heretical fanaticism of the persecutors grew, the Holy See had to insist on the obligation not to communicare in sacris, because tolerance had by then become unjustifiable (Instructio generalis of 1723 of the Holy Office, and of 1729 Cum saepe ac diu), remaining only for three necessary acts: Baptism, Matrimony, burial, by virtue of the competences of the personal statute of the patriarchs, to whom even the Armenian Catholics remained civilly subject.

It followed by natural logic that the nuclei of Armenian Catholics throughout the Ottoman Empire either had to remain without worship, or attend the Latin missionary churches where these existed, or celebrate in private houses in secret, or submit to the persecuting patriarch. The failure to organize Catholics in churches of their own rite, because of the tyranny of the patriarchs; the necessity of attending Latin churches and of being assisted by foreigners, brought it about that Armenian Catholicism from the beginning of the 18th century was synonymous with franchisation or with ritual, disciplinary, and social suazionalization; only thus was a considerable mass of Catholic faithful, deprived of their own pastors in the provinces, removed from the Catholic current. The remedy hoped for with the creation of the Patriarchate of Cilicia was neither notable nor timely. This explains the overwhelming minority of followers left to the Catholic leaders at the beginning of the 18th century.

Kolot (1715-41), in the Synod of the patriarchate of Constantinople of 1727, where Karapet was elected katholikós of Etchmiadzin, removed the anathemas against St. Leo and the Council of Chalcedon in order to attract Catholics to his churches. His culture, his friendship and gratitude toward the ambassador of France de Villeneuve, caused him to recognize a certain religious freedom for Catholics, with whom he concluded an agreement of friendship; and finally he presented to Msgr. Bona, patriarchal vicar, his own profession of faith. He would even have gone to Rome had death not overtaken him in 1741. His successor too, Giacomo Nalean (1741-49; 1752-64), though indulgent toward Catholics at the end of his patriarchate, would have been disposed and committed to leave religious freedom as Kolot had.

The separatist efforts of the Catholics were partially realized when in Aleppo on 26 March 1740 Abraham Peter I Ardzivian (v.) was elected to succeed Luke Albakean, who died in 1737, in his see of Sis, and was confirmed by Benedict XIV on 26 November 1741, receiving the pallium in Rome on 8 December of the same year.

Having left Rome in July 1743, he could not install himself in Cilicia, Michael having been elected by the dissident faction, nor in Constantinople, where, as patriarch of the title of Cilicia in the restricted sense, he would have remained outside his territory; but since, on the other hand, the patriarch Nalean had closed the door to him, he settled in Lebanon in the monastery of Kreim of the Antonian monks.

When Ardzivian died on 1 October 1749, seven other katholikói succeeded him in the residence of Lebanon, the first three chosen from among the Antonian monks of Kreim: Giacomo Peter II (1749-53), Michael Peter III (1753-80), Basil Peter IV (1780-88), Gregory Peter V (1788-1812), Gregory Peter VI (1812-41), Giacomo Peter VII (1841-1843), Gregory Peter VIII (1843-66) called the oriental star.

Beyond the works of normal administration and the erection of a few new sees, which rose from four to ten, nothing worthy of note is recorded, except the development of the Congregation of the Antonians and of Bzommar. The convocation of the Synod of Bzommar in 1875 (Mansi, XL) is the first attempt of its kind, incomplete however, and which does not merit approval (see the notice of the consultor G. De Ferrari, loc. cit., col. 893-914).

The success of the Catholics, therefore, with the creation of the patriarchal see of Cilicia was precarious: since a) it remained limited until 1866 to the territories of Cilicia alone, part of Lesser Armenia, Syria, Mesopotamia, Egypt; and the most populous provinces of all Greater Armenia and of Anatolia continued to depend on the Latin patriarchal vicariate of Constantinople, which from 1758 onward began to govern it through an Armenian bishop appointed by Propaganda from among the three candidates presented by the clergy and the faithful (Merassian Atanasio from 1758, then Messerlian Antonio (1787, and again from 1806 onward, Sofalian Sahak vartapet in 1784); b) the patriarchs of Cilicia residing at Bzommar did not have the civil prerogatives, and therefore the persecutions of the patriarchs of Constantinople persisted throughout the Ottoman Empire until 1830, the time when the Armenian Catholics were emancipated from the patriarchal jurisdiction of Kum-Kapù.

Meanwhile in the second half of the 18th century the patriarchs of Constantinople sought to reach some compromise with the Armenian Catholics.

Thus Zaccaria II (1773-81, 1782-99) attempted to win the Catholics over to his own Church by promising freedom, provided they were willing on the four principal feasts to participate in worship and to communicate. The Marquis Serpos, with the Dissertazione polemico-critica of 1783, attempted to find a path of conciliation. The Holy See replied, under penalty of deprivation of absolution, with its own prescriptions de non communicando at the divine offices and Sacraments of the dissidents, always excluding the three cases of Matrimony, Baptism and funerals.

During the second patriarchate of Hovhannès XI, Armenian patriarch of Constantinople (1802-13), in the years 1809-1810, through the initiative of well-disposed laymen of both parties, a Treaty of Reunion was brought to be signed, containing five articles of Catholic faith: the Primacy, the Chalcedonian formula of the two natures in one person, the Filioque, the immediate reward of the elect after death and Purgatory. The initiative, hailed with enthusiasm by eminent figures, both European and Armenian, was thwarted by the lack of concord of the Armenian Catholic clergy of Constantinople.

Paul Grigorean (1815-23), in the years 1816-20, resumed the attempt at some compromise, in a congress held between Catholic and dissident representatives, under his presidency. Msgr. Messerlian refused to take part in it: he was exiled (1820) and died in exile. The congress, in which some Catholic ecclesiastics with the best intentions took part, against the injunctions of the Holy See, failed. The Armenian Catholic family Duzian (Duz-Oglù), very influential with the Sultan, was suppressed through the treason of Artin Pezgian effendi, a dissident, under the accusation of squandering the imperial treasures.

Meanwhile, with the Russo-Turkish war having broken out on the frontiers of the Caucasus, the Armenians of the frontier showed sympathies toward Tsar Nicholas I as a liberator. Nerses, the dissident archbishop of Tiflis, went over to the side of General Paskevich with 10,000 fighting men. In the Treaty of Turkmenchay Nicholas I annexed Etchmiadzin (1828) to the Russian Empire; thus the supreme Armenian katholikossal See passed under Russian dominion, which in 1836, by the constitution Polezhenie, modeled it on the pattern of the Russian Orthodox Church, and from that date onward that See followed the fortunes of Russian policy.

During this Russo-Turkish war of 1827, in order to obtain from the Sultan in favor of Msgr. Marusci the emancipation of the Armenian Catholic community from the Armenian patriarch, Tenkerian, head of the influential Catholic families of Constantinople, put forward among other arguments also the sympathy of the dissident Armenians toward the Tsar. Karapet, patriarch of Kum-Kapù, having learned of this accusation, and aided by Paul Grigorian, former patriarch, overcame it by giving the Sultan every guarantee concerning the loyalty of the Armenians who frequented the national churches, that is, of the dissidents, and refused any responsibility concerning the Armenian Catholics who frequented the churches of the Latins and were as foreigners. The effect was the terrible persecution that lasted from 3 Oct. 1827 to Feb. 1828, in which 10,000 Armenian Catholics of Constantinople were exiled into the interior of Anatolia in the depths of winter; nor were the other cities of Anatolia and Asia Minor spared. It was the last of the persecutions, lasting fully 130 years, of the Armenian Catholics at the hands of the patriarchs of Kum-Kapù.

Sultan Mahmud, defeated by the Russians and having recourse to the representatives of France and Austria, was constrained, on the recommendation of Leo XII, to accept the emancipation of the Armenian Catholics of Turkey from the civil jurisdiction of the Armenian patriarch of Kum-Kapù, by inserting into the Treaty of Adrianople, on 14 Sept. 1829, Art. 12, which was signed by the Sultan on 6 Jan. 1830. Pius VIII therefore created the Armenian-Catholic primatial see of Constantinople on 6 July 1830 (Quod iamdiu), assigning to it all the territory until then subject to the Latin patriarchal vicar of Constantinople.

Nurigian Antonio was named first primate (1830-1838); he was followed by Marusci Antonio (1838-46), and by Hassun Antonio (1846), who since 1842 had already been coadjutor cum iure successionis.

From 1830 onward the Armenian Catholic community thus began to have two ecclesiastical designations, the patriarchal one of Cilicia (1741) and the primatial one of Constantinople (1830); but only the primate had, before the Ottoman state, the civil attributes of the Armenian-Catholic millat. The patriarch of Cilicia needed the service of the primatial see for the conduct of civil affairs before the Sublime Porte. In this respect the primatial See of Constantinople took precedence over the katholikossate of Cilicia.

Nurigian (nor even his immediate successor) was unable to unite the two powers in his hands; because he, as an Austrian subject, was not admitted by the Ottoman Empire; Giacomo vartapet Ciukurian (Valle) was called to supply this task with the title of patrik. Thus a harmful dualism was inaugurated; when he died, others succeeded him; only for a brief period were the two powers united in the primate Hassun (1845-48), who received them again later as patriarch in 1861. Among the Greeks the ecumenical patriarch governed with the synod; among the Armenians the dissident patriarch governed with the mixed national assembly. The Catholics could not fail to follow the example, all the more so since the state authority often did not favor the candidates and changed them easily. Often the patrik, head of the nation, with his council, to which belonged the administration of properties of a mixed character, set himself up in opposition to the primate, who was exclusively the spiritual head. The clashes, however much one wished to avoid them, became inevitable. The permanent fusion of two competences, which would have been the best solution, was unrealizable given that the two powers emanated from two different sources: the Holy See and the Ottoman State. Moreover there was still the separation of two sees and two Armenian-Catholic ecclesiastical designations, between which there were rivalry and animosity. It was therefore necessary to merge the two sees into one.

This came about after the death of the patriarch of Cilicia Gregory Peter VIII (9 Jan. 1866), in the person of the primate Hassun at the Synod of 14 Sept. 1866 held at Bzommar under the presidency of Msgr. Valerga, apostolic delegate of Syria and Latin patriarch of Jerusalem. The bull Reversurus regulated the modalities of this union; on 15 July 1867 Antonio Hassun received the pallium, and in Aug. the imperial berat. Hassun, primate in 1850, the creator of six new Armenian-Catholic residential episcopal sees (Angora, Artwin, Brussa, Erzerum, Ispahan, Trebizond), with those of the patriarchate of Cilicia reached the number of fully 17 sees. Everything seemed to combine so that, in a period of peace, Catholicism might have its greatest development in the Armenian class, after the century of persecutions. Such, however, was not the case. The causes were many, among which the following seem the most important: the Armenian-Catholic community, having detached itself from the mass of the nation largely inclined to schism, had had an unfortunate direction of Latinization, introduced ever since the Order of the Armenian Unitors (14th cent.) was formed, to which from the very beginning the reactionary current of excessively isolationist traditionalism had opposed itself. This bifurcated direction would have been the origin of almost all the evils.

The void that separated the Latinizers from the conservatives was not sufficiently filled; on the contrary, the sides crystallized, and a mutual rapprochement, so urgent for defending themselves and opposing the machinations of the dissident patriarchs of Constantinople, was never realized. The forces of the Catholics neutralized one another in the clash among themselves and against the common adversary. After the passage of centuries, the controversies over rite and discipline, relics of an unfortunate past, greatly aided by the ignorance of the age, became more acute. The values of the ritual, disciplinary, and literary tradition of the whole Armenian antiquity were undervalued or altogether devalued, and not rarely, as a sign of attachment to the Roman Catholic Mother Church, were utterly despised by the Catholic missionaries themselves, instructed in the knowledge of theological and canonical disciplines of general and Western interest, but little or not at all in disciplines of particular, that is, national, interest. Even the publications of learned and erudite theologians, philologists, and historians, tending to dispel the veil of ignorance and destined to raise the problems, were often denounced as heretical; works that even today would do honor to any literature. It would suffice to recall the acute controversies concerning the works of John Oznetzi, the History of P. M. Ciamcian, the Lives of the Saints (12 vols.) of G. B. Aucher, the Commentary on the Armenian Hymnal and the Pauline Epistles of G. Avedichian, published in the first quarter of the 19th century.

This treatment no less incited to persecution the dissident Armenians, who were greatly attached to their traditions, although incapable of explaining their reasons; and it incited to reaction that current of sound conservatism and respect for traditions, wisely and constantly recommended by the instructions and practices of the Holy See, and imposed by motives of sound Catholic apostolate, so as not to create new rifts without necessity and not to widen the abyss of separation between Catholics and dissidents. Thus it was natural that the preaching of the luminous Catholic faith should be clouded by the dissident adversaries and discredited in the eyes of the common people with the epithets of franchization, Latinization and denationalization. Pius VIII, penetrating with a prophetic eye into the disastrous consequences of such conflicts from the very beginning of the erection of the primatial See, paternally exhorted the clergy and the faithful to concord and charity: cf. Quod iamdiu of 30 July 1830 (Mansi, XL, 754 ff.); and Benedictus Deus of the cardinal prefect of Propaganda addressed to the Catholic Armenian clergy and people of Constantinople (10 July 1830): «Verendum esset, ne opus hoc dexterae Dei protegentis auxilio tam feliciter inchoatum auctumque brevi concideret atque dilaberetur: molestiae enim illae, quae vobis antea inferebantur extrinsecus, domesticae fieri possent atque intestinae, sensimque nationem vestram ad exitum deducere, iuxta illud Apostoli ad Galatas: Si invicem mordetis et comeditis, videte ne ab invicem consummemini...». The same exhortations were written by Gregory XVI in the year 1832 in the Inter gravissimas.

To these controversies there were added, in the second half of the same 19th century, others even more delicate, concerning the so-called national rights of the participation of the lower clergy and of the faithful in the presentation of candidates to the dioceses and to the patriarchate, infringed by the licet, and altogether revoked by the bull Reversurus. This, in fact, extended to the entire Armenian Catholic patriarchate of Cilicia the restrictions hitherto applied only to the primatial see alone, namely the presentation of three candidates, from among whom the Holy See would make the choice, and this perpetuis futuris temporibus. Once the patriarch Hassun had been deposed, Hagop Bahtarean, bishop of Diyarbakır, was installed as anti-patriarch, and he was later succeeded by Kupelean. Msgr. A. Franchi was sent by the Holy See to negotiate diplomatically with Ali Pasha, but he failed. The struggle continued fiercely between the two parties of Hassunists and anti-Hassunists: the churches both of the capital and of the provinces were one by one contested and seized. Leo XIII mitigated the provisions of the Reversurus, recognizing the right of election in the synod of bishops, with the obligation of having it verified as to its canonicity. Kupelean obtained the grace of making his own retraction in the very presence of the Pope, and of thus being solemnly absolved, in the presence of the cardinals of Rome, on 18 April 1879. The patriarch Hassun was created cardinal in 1880, and died in the year 1884, after having obtained from the munificent Pope the erection in Rome of the Pontifical Armenian College (1883). Azarian was appointed to succeed Hassun as patriarch on 24 January 1881, and soon saw the end of the conflagration that had for almost thirty years devastated a great good.

In the 18th century the persecutions, and in the 19th the internal controversies, largely originating from the failure to reconcile ritual and disciplinary institutions and Armenian values with the sound principles of Catholicism, frustrated not only the well-founded hopes of the 17th century for a return of the mass of the people to Catholic unity, but also hindered the pace of conversions.

Armenian Catholicism was condemned to grow only through the internal virtue of births, remaining always the minority of the nation.

Eighteen years of wise government by Azarian (1881-1899) gave notable results for the propagation of Catholicism. He was wrongly reproached for having granted, in the Regolamento of the patriarchate, to the laity a part in the election of patriarchs that had been condemned by the Reversurus. That regulation, however, served for the election of his successors Paul Peter XI Emmanuelean (1899-1904) and Paul Peter XII Sabaghian (1904-1909), without Rome protesting. The fire was rekindled 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 wanted to introduce the popular vote also in the election of diocesan bishops. Having come to Rome, he gathered the episcopate in a national synod (1911); Pius X reserved to himself for that occasion the appointment of vacant sees. The agitators, this time exclusively laymen, rebelled; and aided by the Sublime Porte they declared Terzian deposed, as regards the civil attributes of the caponation (1912). The scandal unfortunately ended only under the sword of the Turkish massacrers in 1915-18, in which 5 bishops were martyred, three others died in exile; of the 16 dioceses only 3 remained; of 250 priests, about 126 were massacred together, 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 are directed the hopes of all for a spiritual resurrection of the Armenian nation.

IV. - THE ARMENIAN RITE.

1. Origin

The origin of the Armenian rite is connected with the spread of the Gospel in Armenia, which occurred around 300, through the work of St. Gregory the Illuminator (v.), raised in Caesarea of Cappadocia, and of other followers. These brought to Armenia the rite of Caesarea which, in turn, derived from that of Antioch, from which the first missionaries of that same Church had set out. Great, moreover, was the affinity between the Antiochene and Jerusalem rites, the latter of which was also held in great esteem by the Armenians.

2. Language

With the rite of Cappadocia the Greek language was also adopted in divine worship, for lack of an Armenian alphabet. Persia, antagonist of Byzantium, in the brief period of its invasion of Armenia (368-369), sought to replace Greek with the language of the Syrians, its loyal subjects, supporting its preservation even after the division of Armenia in 387. The ineffectiveness of that unintelligible tongue for the spiritual profit of the people suggested to the doctor St. Mašthoc (Mesrop) the creation of the Armenian script, to which he gave life in 404, basing it on the Greek alphabet. With the help of the patriarch Isaac and of his disciples, versed in Greek and Syriac letters, he immediately translated the Holy Scripture and the liturgical books. After the Council of Chalcedon (v.) came the separation of the official Armenian Church (591), which oriented itself toward the Syrians, its instigators to the Monophysite schism, and began to undergo their influence also in the rite. In fact, from the 6th century date: the suppression of the water in the chalice of the Mass, the return to the ancient union of Christmas with the Epiphany; as well as the addition "qui crucifixus es pro nobis" in the Trisagion, accepted and still preserved among the Jacobites and dissident Armenians.

3. 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, reported by the historians of the time, recited by the Leonine priests in prison among the Persians: Nocturns, which took place at midnight; Matins, which began at cockcrow; and Vespers, said in the evening; there were also the prayers of the hours Terce, Sext and None, which Mandacuni enriched with his Lenten Admonitions and Prayers. Stephen, bishop of Iunia, in the 8th century, to the aforesaid hours added two other offices, one At sunrise (Prime), and the other Of rest (Compline), which followed Vespers. But these two, originally proper to that diocese, by the 10th century had already become common, so that Khosrov, bishop of the Anzevians, was able to comment on them.

In the breviary exemplars of the 14th century we find another hour, which followed that Of rest 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 ferial day, as in the Sunia, while other testimonies from the 7th to the 14th century speak of the recitation of only seven. Nocturns was reserved for feasts, and that of Sunrise for ferial days, alternating in turn with that of the Hour of peace. This was the system followed by the whole nation. In certain circles and periods two of them were entirely suppressed, as Moses of Erzinca, in the 13th century, and others affirm.

The obligatory offices were recited first 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: "Office of Psalmody". This patriarch divided the psalms into eight "canons" or groups, causing each to be followed by a blessing, an "admonition" and a double "prayer". The office was then completed by biblical readings and doctrinal explanations. Mandacuni added his admonitions, as we said above; and little by little it was enriched, also with hymns successively composed, which formed a separate volume, called Sorocan (Hymnal); while the office of the whole year, with the ceremonies and the readings of the Mass, formed the Conocoic (Calendar).

4. Ritual (Maithoc)

The ritual was composed, after the abandonment of the Syriac one, in the 5th century, as its affinity with the Greek one proves, on account of those bonds of sympathy that then bound the Armenians to Hellenism. The first true structure of this book is not known to us; but we know with certainty that it soon began to develop. In the oldest exemplar of the 11th century preserved at St. Lazarus of Venice, the first chapter is on the Order of the Foundation (and Consecration) of the church, by John Mandacuni, Katholikós of the Armenians (years 478-90).

The ritual underwent another reform in the 9th century, or rather all the blessings, previously separate, were gathered into a single volume to facilitate their use; this work is attributed by later authors to Maithoc, superior of the monastery of Sevan, whose name would have been affixed to the books, while his disciple Stephen, in the memorial that has come down to us, states that he himself carried out that work: "I made," he says, "this little book, the lowliest, in 893" (cod. no. 1571 of St. Lazarus). Since this memorial is found only in the rituals, it therefore concerns the same work, which he has no thought of attributing to the master in the biography inserted in that same document of his. It is far, however, from being a "little book," since it contains 45 chapters: it is the sole and precious representative of the ancient, certainly not primitive, state of the ritual, and was published in English by Conybeare (Oxford 1905). With the approach of the Western Church, of the East and of Armenian Cilicia at the time of the third crusade, the Armenian rite came under the influence of the Roman one. The katholikós Gregory IV, in 1185, asked Pope Lucius III for the Roman ritual, which he had translated into Armenian. In codex Bb 100 of the Vatican (13th century) there are two orders of Baptism: the Armenian and the Latin, and the order of Confirmation which is conferred by the bishop; and both practiced at will, as the Council of Sis in 1342 confirmed. The Latin element is more abundant in the copy written at Sis in the 14th century. The council also alludes to other Latinizing innovations. This confusion of rites could not endure even in Cilicia for the reason that Greater Armenia never wanted to hear of it, and it was suppressed in subsequent rituals. Instead, the minor orders, unknown in the Armenian church, were spontaneously accepted and preserved by the whole nation; they were cited for the first time by Zaccaria Dsordsoretzi, in the first quarter of the 14th century, and by the Council of 1342, and inserted in the aforementioned codex of 1345, together with the anointing of bishops and priests, and the delivery of the vessels, also recalled by the aforesaid council, and practiced until now; as well as the order of the coronation of kings, used in Cilicia. The Catholics then accepted, on the suggestion of Rome, the infusion of water into the wine of the chalice, the separation of Christmas and the connected 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 by the priest. Besides these, several other points of the Latin rite have been adopted by the Catholic clergy in its ritual, which Hassunian published (1880), and which departs from that approved by the S. Congregation of Propaganda Fide in 1840, and edited by the Mechitarists of Venice, on the basis of the ancient texts (1831).

With the rite of Cappadocia, Armenia naturally also adopted the liturgy of the Mass (Patarag), which was said to be of St. James, formed in Antioch on that preserved in the Apostolic Constitutions, in Greek, and which was 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 interests us here is the fact that this Mass was immediately welcomed also by the Armenian Church, as appears from a passage put into the mouth of a celebrated Armenian by Faustus, who wrote toward the end of the 4th century, and highlighted by P. Gathircian (SS. Liturgie degli Armeni, pp. 97-132). The Armenian translation of this liturgy, carried out in the 5th century, is still preserved in the codices together with another medieval version of it. It was followed by the present one, which since the 10th century has been known in Armenia under the name of Athanasius. Gathircian has 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 is enough for him to conclude that the hand of the same patriarch was in that liturgy (op. cit., pp. 323-28). He may be a reviser of it, which in its essential part 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 connected it with the Byzantine one (in DThC, IX, col. 817). And it is still the same liturgy, at first shorter and later developed in the Greek and Armenian text, which was commented on by Khosrov around 950 (Comment. Missae, Venice 1869) and by Narsetes Lambronesc, archbishop of Tarsus, in 1177 (Comment. Missae, Venice 1846), the latter of whom also "embellished" the missal. After him, there there were added: the beginning of the breviary and of the Armenian version of the Roman missal, probably translated together with the ritual, the prayers of vesting, the Confiteor, in its three parts, which are seen for the first time in the codices of the 13th century, and the last gospel (cf. Hatzuni, Messale armeno, pp. 14, 15, 25). Alongside this, there existed other liturgies in A., and Khosrov saw them without being able to explain them all; this means that they too were in use on given days. Ukhtanee also makes this clear to us, toward the end of the same 10th century, recalling his meeting with Anania on the bank of the Akhurian river, where "they said the Mass of the 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 the later codices, besides the usual one. Three of them, namely the two translations of the Basilian and the Chrysostomian, contain passages of 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 (cod. 1411 of St. Lazarus), also marks the days of the celebration of those of Athanasius (the common one), of Chrysostom and of Basil (2nd translation), although Lambronese declares that in his time they did not have the Chrysostomian reform. It may be that this was translated and admitted after him.

One of the characteristics of the Armenian liturgy is, besides the absence of water from the chalice, the unleavened bread, whose use is very ancient, and confirmed by all Armenian writers, beginning with Moses II, who, in the letter to the emperor Maurice (591), declared that he did not wish to go to him, so as "not to eat of bread baked under ashes, 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, conforming to the Greek text, while the Cilician codex no. 1411 of St. Lazarus has modified it with various omissions and with the addition of some passage of the ordinary Armenian missal, then intercalating it in the vesperal office. It was to be celebrated "on Wednesday and Friday of Lent." It seems that it was arbitrarily practiced in Cilicia, while Greater A. did not want to hear of it, this "half-Mass" or "Presanctified Mass," according to Gregory of Tavel, 1397.

Sung Mass - and also the only one at first - was reserved, besides for feast days, for Saturday and Sunday, as the Council of Duin disposed in 645 (can. 6). But later the Low Mass also appears in A., deriving from the application to private individuals of the divine Sacrifice in "quarantines," which is cited in the canons of the Council of Partaw in 768 (can. 18), and which made daily private celebration necessary. This manner was widespread in the Middle Ages throughout the country, as countless tombstones remaining in the ancient churches confirm, and Lambronese, who also describes its very simple form, with the celebrant alone (Comment. Missae, p. 438), or with the assistance of a minister. This system continued until the 17th century and therefore was preserved only among Catholics. In Lent, during which the liturgy was suspended, except on Saturday and Sunday, there was used instead throughout A. an "Order of the prayer of refection at the ninth hour of Lent," which was the so-called dry Mass, that is, without oblation. At that time it did not yet have a schema of its own, but one of the Masses in use was read, for example that of St. Athanasius. Later it had a formulary of its own, which is described in the "Instructions," taken in the 12th century from the Theleni convent (cod. no. 1372 of St. Lazarus). It was a summary of the ordinary Mass, as it appears in the breviary of the princess Mariun (14th century) at St. Lazarus (cod. no. 521), and in codex V 3 of the Vatican (13th century), the latter of which ends thus: the priest "blesses the bread and distributes it, and they take their leave," as in the common liturgy. The missal in practice today among 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 the patriarch Hassunian, in 1879, for the Low Mass, and somewhat Latinized. All the others are in disuse.

Vardan Hatzuni

V. – CANON LAW.

Until the 5th century the canonical repertory of the Armenian Church consisted, as for the other churches of the East, of the decisions of ecumenical councils, of the pseudo-apostolic collections, and of some national synod.

The canons of Nicaea (325) were introduced through St. Aristakes who had taken part in it. For the canons of the local councils we lack contemporary allusions from the historical sources; however, it is not improbable that the canons of this or that local council were introduced, in which the Armenians had taken part through the exarchate of Caesarea.

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

There were furthermore the canonical decisions of the First national legislative Synod of Aštisat (354-55), where the so-called First Apostolic Canons were adopted, that is, the Doctrina Apostolorum composed of 34-35 articles; then the Ephesine canons (dogmatic) introduced into A. officially through the Translators under the katholikos St. Sahak in the national synod of Aštisat around 435; the disciplinary canons of the national Council of Sahapivan (447), and presumably also the so-called Canons of St. Sahak the Great, Soperk Haykakanlı, Venice 1853, 2nd series, pp. 71-134 (Arm.), as also the so-called Second Apostolic which would be the Canones Apostolici 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 the katholikos John Oznetzi, called the Philosopher (717-28), comprising the series of canons up to then introduced or in use in the Armenian Church, existing in the patriarchal Curia. The merit of the work seems to have been that it gathered these norms in chronological order, reconstituting for each series the preface in which it indicated the motivation, the date, and the index, in order to facilitate their use. Since Oznetzi's Collection is lacking in the original or in a contemporary manuscript, it is not easy to determine with precision of which canonical groups it was composed. We can only conjecture, through historical testimonies and the citations made by contemporary writers, that the said Collection should have contained, besides the series of canons we cited above, other new groups introduced into the Armenian Church after the 5th century up to his own time. Certainly there was 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 residence at Duino, that is, the 39 canons of Nerses II of Aštarak, the 12 canons of Duino of 645, under Nerses III, and of 719 under John Oznetzi; and perhaps other series of canons of the Holy Fathers that we cannot determine. This Collection of Oznetzi was further enriched up to the 10th or even 11th century, with the addition of the other canonical groups of the Armenian synods, and perhaps also of the Holy Fathers.

Judging from the oldest codex that has come down to us of the said canonical Collection (codex of Giulfa, Persia, written in 1098, today preserved in the monastery of the Most Holy Savior), at the end of the 11th century the Armenian canonical Collection, the Kanonaghirkh, contained besides the aforementioned canonical groups, also the 114 canons called Second Nicene (really an eclectic juxtaposition of the 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 called of St. Gregory the Illuminator, and many other canons that came down under the name of John Mandacuni, of Abraham bishop of the Mamikonesni, and of the national Synod of Karin (Erzerum); and under the name of the Holy Fathers and ecclesiastical writers, such as the 27 canons that came down under the title of the Fathers Successors of the Apostles, besides those in 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 developments, so that the decisions of the subsequent national synods, of the 12th-17th centuries, remained outside the collection. Almost all the codices of the Kanonaghirkh of the 11th-17th centuries maintain the identical content.

This entire canonical series was gathered in the form of a Nomocanon by the glossator Mechitar Goš (d. 1213) in the Datastanaghirkh (book of judgments or of judicial sentences), where the author, according to his own systematic order, cites the text of the canon, or of a νόμος, and gives its commentary. The work was written between 1184 and 1213. This Nomocanon Collection dominated throughout the Middle Ages as a manual of ecclesiastical-civil Code, both in Greater Armenia and in Cilicia, where it dominated rather in the guise of the redaction of the Code of Sampat Connetable, and also in the Armenian colonies of Poland, where a Latin version was ratified by Sigismund I in 1519, and of Tartary, where a Tatar version was made for the Armenian colonies of Astrakhan and the Crimea. Indeed it had a notable influence on the Georgian Code in the redaction of Vahtank VI (18th century), in whose 3rd part it is incorporated, and indirectly also on the general Code of Tsar Nicholas I in 1835, when it was decided that the Russian Senate would make use of the aforementioned Code of Vahtank VI.

The Canonical Collection of the Kanonaghirkh, as also of the Nomocanon Datastanaghirkh, of Mechitar Goš, being closed at the end of the 12th century, the disciplinary acts of the subsequent Armenian synods, or the patriarchal encyclicals, between the 13th and 16th centuries, remained outside the collections cited above. 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 of the years 1204, 1246, 1307 (the last under Gregory VII of Anazarba), of the Synod of Adana of the year 1316, which confirmed the Acts of the preceding synod (1307), of the Synod of Sis of 1342; as well as the Constitutions of the monastery of Zak of 1270, and of the Synod of Jerusalem of 1651. The Synods of Sis of the year 1307, and of Adana of the year 1316, as synods of a Latinizing tendency, were not accepted by the Eastern vartapets. It was the era in which the influence of Latin discipline had begun, through the frequent correspondence and embassies between the Roman Pontiffs and the patriarchs, the kings and the princes of Armenian Cilicia, during the centuries of the Crusades. This influence, although it was opposed, always grew in direct proportion to the penetration of Western missionaries, Franciscans and Dominicans first, then subsequently, after the 16th century, also of other Orders (Jesuits, Theatines, Carmelites, Capuchins, etc.), and finally of the Armenian alumni of the Urban College, and of the Armenian College of Lviv.

At the beginning of the 18th century, as a consequence of the official and definitive Armenian schism, Armenian canonical Discipline bifurcates: Armenian Catholic Discipline and non-Catholic and dissident Discipline. The latter is constituted predominantly by the traditional ancient Collection of the Kanonaghirkh, by the canons of extra-Collectional Armenian synods, by the book Datastanaghirkh of Mechitar Goš, and by the synodal or extra-synodal decisions of the patriarchs of Etchmiadzin. The encyclical and private letters of the katholikoi of Etchmiadzin, of Simeon of Erivan (1763-80), of Lukas Karnetzi (1780-99), of Hovsep Arluthian (1800-1801), of Daniel I (1801-1808), are found collected in Alaneantz sac. Kiut, Archive of Armenian History (in Armenian), vols. III, IV, IX, Tiflis 1893-99.

The Armenian-Catholic discipline, on the other hand, even after the partial restoration (1741) of a new Armenian Catholic hierarchy in the see of the patriarchate of Cilicia (for the greater part of the Armenian-Catholic ecclesiastical territory as regards spiritual matters remained under the Latin patriarchal Vicariate of Constantinople until the year 1830), had throughout the 18th century until the middle of the 19th century, no canonical production worthy of note. The nuclei of Catholic Armenians scattered and isolated throughout the Ottoman empire were governed, except for the canonical institutes better known through tradition, "according to the clear and organic principles of Western discipline," better known both by the hierarchy to which they were directly subject (Patriarchal Vicariate of Constantinople; Patriarchate of Cilicia; S. Congr. of Propaganda), and by the missionaries themselves

Europeans, or Armenian students of the Urban College. The new hierarchy, moreover, both because it was preoccupied primarily with orthodoxy and dogmatic integrity and with the Catholic missions to be sustained under persecutions, and because of its lack of knowledge of the ancient traditions, has generally harbored a certain distrust toward the Armenian traditions themselves. On Mount Lebanon, synods that were exclusively elective were convened; for discipline, custom supplied the need, though it was very vaguely known, and Western canon law supplied it more. Under Msgr. Nurigian and Msgr. Marusci, the first two Armenian Catholic Primates of Constantinople, provisions of a rather liturgical character were adopted.

In the year 1848, during the apostolic visitation of Msgr. Innocenzo Ferrieri, certain resolutions were taken (Archivio di Propaganda, Atti del 1849-50, text of the 37 Dubbi, ff. 92-93; Rescritti, ff. 81-91); and in 1851 the episcopal conference of the primate Hassun was held (ibid., Atti del 1853, part III, Ponenza Stato della Nazione Armena). In the same year (Oct. 16-18), the Armenian Synod of Bzommar was convened on Mount Lebanon, under the presidency of Michael-Peter VIII katholikos (Mansi, XL, col. 890 ff.), whose acts, however, when examined in Rome, were not approved, because they were incomplete or perhaps rather because of the failure of the synodal Fathers themselves to unite. In 1867 there was the Episcopal Conference of Rome (Mansi, XL, 953-1018). The Armenian Synod of Constantinople of July-Oct. 1869, convened by the decree of Apr. 4 of the patriarch Hassun, following the suggestions that came from Pius IX with the letters Commissum humilitati and Libentissime certe, of the year 1869, to restore Armenian Catholic discipline, was prepared with serious study by a commission made up of competent theologians and canonists, such as Azarian Vartapet, Malachia Ormanian, etc., and by eminent figures of the Armenian Catholic secular and regular clergy, who, along with Latin discipline, also knew the ancient Armenian canonical sources and traditions. When the synod was already about to conclude, unfortunately the sessions were suspended ex abrupto, since the synodal fathers had to depart for the Vatican Council. It must be admitted: it is the first Armenian Catholic synod made with broad vision, on a grand scale, by truly competent persons such as those who made up the three Preparatory Commissions (theological, canonical, liturgical). The acts could not be promulgated; they are found only in the few lithographed copies that served the synodal fathers themselves. It is a precious document for penetrating the mind and the views of the prelates of an era in which there were very heated disciplinary controversies and problems of reconciling Eastern disciplinary institutions and privileges with Western institutions, in order to give the former that dynamism and vitality with which the latter were endowed.

The Synod of Chalcedon (1890), convened by the patriarch Azarian, is nothing other than the perfecting of the acts of the Synod of Constantinople of 1869. Azarian Vartapet, who had been the soul of the Synod of Constantinople and one of its principal promoters, at Chalcedon did nothing other than promulgate, after certain revisions and additions, by his own patriarchal authority, the very acts of the Synod of 1869, while awaiting pontifical approval, which, unfortunately, was not obtained. The acts, 928 canons in all, were published in the year 1910 under the editorship of Sirounian Alessio Vartapet. It should be noted that it was the most organic synod, the best elaborated, and the best representative of the 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 of Chalcedon), there immediately stands out the great service rendered by the learned historical, theological, liturgical, and canonical publications made from the end of the 18th century onward throughout the whole 19th century by the two Mechitarist monasteries of Venice and Vienna, such as the learned works of Ciamcian, of G. B. Aucher, of Avedichian, of Gathircian, etc., which created the first current of trust in and respect for the ancient sources of the Armenian tradition.

The National Synod of Rome of 1911, convened by the patriarch Terzian, with the help of a body of illustrious Latin theologian and canonist consultors, who represented in the preparatory Commission the preponderant part in comparison with that of the Armenian consultors, is the synod currently in force and in use in the Armenian Patriarchate of Cilicia, because it was approved in forma communi by the S. Congr. of Prop. Fide. From the point of view of the expression of Armenian canon law, it has a very limited value, both because of the broad adoption of Western principles and institutions, and because of the prevalence of the dogmatic and exhortatory part, in which the dispositive part is almost lost.

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

For the modern Canon Law of the dissident churches of Egmazin, cf. Aivarat (Armenian journal of Egmazin), 1882, p. 83; for the resolutions of the Synod under George IV concerning the duties of the vicars forane, see the same journal 1887, pp. 47, 93, 140, 288 etc.; and in the following years see the titles Archiv. del Beat. Patriarca, and the Cronaca del Sinodo. This journal is rich in information concerning dissident canon law.

Studies: 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 etc.; A. Meghavorian, Etude ethnoge, juridique sur la famille et le mariage arménien, Geneva 1895; G. Daëan, Doctrina Apostolorum (in Armenian), Vienna 1896; V. Hatzuni, Cod. can. or., Fonti, fasc. VIII, Vatican City 1932, pp. 141-66; G. Amaduni, Cod. can. or., Fonti, 2nd series, fasc. XII, Monachismo, Venice 1940; V. Hatzuni, L'autore della lettera a Verthanes à Macario I e non II, in Pazmaveb (Armenian journal), 89 (1931), fasc. I-II.

Finally, much useful information regarding Armenian canon law is found in studies on Armenian civil law, such as: 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 vols. in 1, Leipzig 1856 (contains much interesting information on Armenian law compared with that of the Georgians, etc.); 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, Marburg 1903, p. 87; H. Thopdschian, Politische und Kirchengeschichte Armeniens unter Alet I und Sinopad I, Berlin 1905, pp. 96-215; V. Aptowitzer, Beiträge zur mosafschen Rezeption im armenischen Recht, in Sitzungsberichte der K. Abad. der Wissenschaften. Phil. Hist. Kl., 167 (Vienna 1907), p. 42; K. Samuelean, Il Datastanaghirth di Mechitar Got e il diritto civile armeno (in Armenian), ibid. 1911, pp. 1-344 (it is vol. 73 of the national library of the Mechitarist Fathers of Vienna); K. J. Basmajian, Le droit arménien depuis l'origine jusqu'à nos jours, Macon 1911; G. Amaduni, Influsso del diritto romano giustiniano sul diritto armeno, in Acta Congressus Iuridici Internationalis, II, Rome 1935, pp. 225-38; B. Talatinian, De contractu matrimoniali inxtu Armenos, Jerusalem 1947; Azgaleahan Handis Tulis, Armenian ethnographic review, edited by Lalayantz in the first decade of the 20th century; M. Eminian, Collezione etnografica (in Armenian), 8 vols., Moscow-Valaršapat 1901-1904 (editions of the Oriental languages of the Lazarian Academy).

Garabed Amaduni

VI. - LITERATURE.

Armenian literature unfolds through four periods: 1) ancient or classical, which constitutes its true golden age and is rich in historical, theological, parenetic, poetic, canonical and moral works (5th-14th centuries); 2) the period of singers and troubadours (14th-18th centuries); 3) the period of restoration brought about by Abbot Mechitar (v.); 4) modern and contemporary.

We merely mention the archaic period, of which only fragments of popular songs remain (the so-called songs of Gokten), dedicated to the deeds of kings and heroes.

1. The golden age and the Academy of the holy translators

Armenian literature proper begins in the 5th century, when the Armenians, who previously wrote in Greek and Syriac, obtained, thanks to the holy monk and doctor Mesrop (v.), an alphabet of their own. St. Mesrop, together with the patriarch St. Sahak, established an academy, whose members, after a stay in foreign centers of culture such as Byzantium, Athens and Edessa, returned to their homeland, enriching it with copious translations, beginning with that of the Bible, and with patristic works, and further providing it with its own liturgy, a breviary and a ritual. This vast work of translation, besides constituting a source of pride and a treasure for Armenia, has brought and brings a contribution to scholarship in general, inasmuch as it has preserved for us works of great importance whose originals had been lost, such as for example the Chronicon of Eusebius, the exegetical works of Philo, the Homilies of Severian of Gabala, the Evangelii concordantia Expositio of St. Ephrem the Syrian, etc.

Centers of this cultural production are, among others, the great monastery of Etchmiadzin, the so-called school of Sunia, the monastery of Narek, and very many others from the 5th to the 11th century, which had their seat in Armenia proper, whereas after the 11th century the centers of cultural production developed in Cilicia, only to decline as well after about two centuries because of the barbarian dominations that supervened. At the end of this period of decadence, mention should not be omitted of the school of the so-called Fratres Unitores, Dominicans, who, though animated by great zeal and followed by many Armenians, had the fault of disfiguring the Armenian language, of altering the liturgical books, and of Latinizing the national tradition, thus provoking a reaction harmful to the aims of union, a reaction that found its hearth in the monastery of Dathev.

During this first glorious epoch of Armenian literature, a most honored place in history is occupied by: Agathangelos, who wrote in Greek a History of Armenia (4th century); Faustus of Byzantium, his continuator, who narrated the period from 340 to 392; Lazarus of Parbi, continuator of Faustus from 392 to the early years of the 5th century; Koriun the Admirable, also of the 5th century, author of a Life of St. Mesrop which is at the same time a history of the cultural movement and of the company of the holy translators; Elisha, called the Xenophon of the Armenians, who narrated the holy war waged in 451 by the Armenians against the the Mazdean Persians; Moses of Khoren, the most learned of the Armenian historians (5th century according to tradition, 8th century according to some critics), who in a comprehensive General History of Armenia used abundant sources, thus offering a rich harvest of information. His work runs from the creation of the world to A.D. 400. In the 7th century mention should be made of the History of the Emperor Heraclius, dictated by Sebeos, bishop of the Bagratids; in the 8th century the History of the Arab conquest of Persia, by Leontius: it runs from Muhammad to the year 788; the History of the Albanians of the Caucasus, written by Moses of Katankatuk, which runs from the origin of this people, who had religious and civil relations with the Armenians, down to 685. In the 9th century mention should be made, besides Shapuh Bagratid, of Thomas Arzruni, who narrated the History of the principality of the Arzruni; in the 10th century Asolik of Taron dictated the History of the Armenian monasteries flourishing in the 9th and 10th centuries, and the History of Uhkhtanes, containing the vicissitudes of the Armenian kings and patriarchs and the schism between Armenians and Georgians; in the 11th century Aristakes of Lastivert, called the Jeremiah of the Armenians because he narrated the sorrowful history of his country from 989 to 1071. At the beginning of the 12th century Matthew of Urha (Edessa) composed the History of the foundation of Edessa, Samuel of Ani a Chronicle that reaches to 1179, and St. Nerses the Gracious, patriarch, a History of Armenia in verse, continued by Vahram of Urha down to 1280. In the 13th century Vardan the Great wrote a General History, which reaches to 1267; his companion Kirakos of Ganzak narrated the History of Armenia from its conversion to the faith (300) to the end of the 13th century; in the 14th century the Armenian prince Hayton, having become a Premonstratensian canon in Cyprus (1305), wrote in French, dedicating it to Pope Clement V, a History of the Tartars.

In the field of theology and philosophy the most distinguished work is that of Eznik of Kolb (5th century), entitled the Refutation of the heresies; in the 7th century the poet Vardanes writes a treatise against the iconoclasts, the monk Theodore Kertenavor defends in a writing the mystery of the Incarnation against the Pelagian heresy, and David the Invincible refutes the Manichaeans. In the 8th century the patriarch John IV, called the Philosopher, of Ozun, wrote a Treatise on the Incarnation and on the two natures in Christ against the Phantasiasts and another against the Paulicians; in the 10th century Ananias of Narek refuted the Tondrakites, epigones of the Paulicians.

The great doctor St. Nerses IV the Gracious addressed to the Byzantine emperor Manuel Comnenus a letter on the union of the Armenian Church with the Greek; he wrote another to prince Alexius on the faith and rites of the Armenian Church. The patriarchs Gregory IV, called Degha (12th century), and Constantine I (13th century) also dictated letters of dogmatic content.

The paraenetic literature (homilies, panegyrics, orations) is likewise copious in every century of the classical literary history of Armenia.

Various commentaries on Holy Scripture are to be noted, among many others: Eliseus (6th century) on Genesis, Joshua, Judges; by Stephen, archbishop of Sunia, on Job, Daniel, Ezekiel; by St. Gregory of Narek (10th century) on the Song of Songs; by Vardan the Great (13th century) on the Pentateuch, the Psalms, the Song, Daniel.

The most precious jewels of Armenian-classical literature are found in the ritual books, breviary and hymnal. This poetry (in Armenian šaracan), partly in verse and for the most part in prose, is wholly pervaded by a profound sense of adoration before the mysteries of the faith celebrated in the great liturgical feasts: Christmas, Epiphany, Holy Cross, Holy Week, Easter, feasts of the Madonna, of the martyrs, especially of the Armenian virgin St. Rhipsime and her companions. Authors of this choice hymnographic production are the patriarch Gomidas, John IV the Philosopher, Stephen of Sunia and above all the patriarch Nerses IV the Gracious, whose poetry combines an inimitable grace with a great depth of theological thought. Among his very many hymns, that of the Triumphal Awakening should be remembered.

Some works of mystical elevation, generally written in elegiac metre, may be considered as forming part of this hymnographic section. Noteworthy are the 95 due to St. Gregory of Narek, the various ones of St. Nerses the Gracious, especially that entitled Hius Uorti "Jesus son", a compendium of the divine books in 8000 verses. Of the canonical and disciplinary works, special mention is deserved by those of the patriarch John IV the Philosopher (8th century), the collection of the 23 canons of the patriarch Sion (7th century) and above all the ecclesiastical and civil Corpus Iuris of Mechitar Gosh (11th century), a work that served as the basis for all later Armenian legislations.

2. Period of the singers and troubadours

At the decline of classical Armenian literature, following the invasions of the barbarians of the East, there arises the popular literature, poor in language but rich in spirit and grace, with themes now religious, such as the sacred songs of Constantine of Erzinca (13th century), the Book of Adam or Paradise Lost of Arakel of Sunia (14th century), now moral: songs of sorrow, of the vanity of earthly things, such as those of Frik (15th century), etc. The songs of love are due to M. Nagash, to Gregory of Tulguran, and especially to Kuchak.

A troubadour of great fame is Sayat-Nova, to whom we owe splendid moral and amorous songs.

3. Restoration of literature

It took place around 1700 through the work of Mechitar and the Mechitarists. Generally speaking, it may be said that this is a humanism patronized by an academy founded by Mechitar (in imitation of those of the golden age), which gave the Armenian nation a general history of its own with the colossal work of Chamchian; theology, patristics and hagiography are due to the great Chamchian, Avedichian, Aucherian, who three, together with Siurmelian, compiled the Dictionary of the Academy, a true treasure of the Armenian language. Meanwhile Asgherian, Tomagian, Bagratuni, Hurmuz restore to the nation its golden language, while Ingigian and Alishan illustrate the religious and profane antiquities of the nation.

4. Contemporary literature

It is the daughter of the neoclassical literature of the Mechitarists. Bagratuni first, then Alishan, the greatest of the modern poets, revive lyric poetry, to which Besciktashlian gives elegance and harmony, invoking together with his Mechitarist masters the moral reform of the nation before the political one. Turian, Terzian, Narbey, Sibil, Mezarentz, Varoujan and Tekeian bring lyric poetry to very lofty forms, while Dussap, Zerentz, Arpiarian, Zohrab, Zartarian treat the novel.

This branch, which we shall call the western branch of contemporary Armenian literature, develops in Venice, Vienna and Constantinople, uses an elegant style and has an international character because of its spiritual relations with the West. The eastern branch, on the other hand, in Tiflis and Erivan in the Caucasus, where the race is well compact on its native soil, preserves more faithfully the national character and manifests social and popular tendencies in a form of virile and robust literature. Abovian, with the patriotic novel of love and sorrow The Wounds of Armenia, launches the cry of the uprising; Raffi, Aharonian, Scirvanzade, Papazian, Nardos follow him. Sandukian and Sciant treat the drama. Nalbandian, Patkanian, Havhannessian, Tumanian, Jsaakian, Derian and many others still compose lyrics, who in Erivan sing with nostalgia the sacred memories of their homeland.

VII. — MUSIC.

In Armenia singing developed around the 5th century after the conversion to Christianity. From that epoch a rich poetic-musical heritage began to take shape which, later gathered into a collection, was called Šaracan (a necklace of gems, hymnal, songbook). The ecclesiastical modes took definitive form in the 8th century and are divided into two categories: 4 authentic and 4 plagal, to which, according to the ancients, two steghi are also added (that is, melismatic chants having a special technique, reserved for the soloist). Each of the 8 Armenian tones is founded on specific melodic types, handed down by ancient tradition. Moreover, to each of them are given one or two kinds of Dartzvadz (change), which is a more solemn melodic structure than that of the archaic principal type, except for the final cadence common with the mode. The tonic, on which the whole structure is founded, ordinarily has a task of primary importance, especially in the melodies and solo, like the ison of the Greeks.

The sacred melody of the Šaracan can be divided into three distinct genres: ierplici, festini and gravi, corresponding to the Byzantine irmologici, sticheratici and papadici. Musical notation can be distinguished into three periods: 1. Semiographic. The Armenian hymnographers used the ancient neumes introduced by Kaciatur Vartapet of Tarón (12th century). Coming from the Byzantine ones, they took on such combinations as to make their exact reading difficult today. It is through such neumatic signs that the codices of the Šaracan, as well as various other genres of sacred chants, called Gantz, Tagh, Meghedi, etc., hand down to us the ancient Armenian sacred music. — II. Modern neumatic. The ancient semiographic musical system was succeeded by the modern one around 1815, through the work of Papà Hambartzum Limonëan (1768-1839), who of the ancient notation adopted only a series of neumatic signs. His merit lies in the choice of these neumatic signs, which he called by Arabic names. After him his followers indicated them first with Armenian names, then shortened them and distinguished them by their first syllables. In later times these musical notes were also named like the European ones. Meanwhile, besides the theoretical books for schools, hymns of the Šaracan, chants of the Mass and other melodies were also written in the modern notation. Particular mention deserves the colossal work of the Šaracan of Eġmidzin, divided into two volumes, a publication for the most part by Nicola Thakian, under the auspices of George V, katholikós of the Armenians. No lesser importance has the transcription of most of the melodies contained in the Šaracan (5 vols., Istanbul 1934), a posthumous work, traditionally more valuable, of the musicologist and musician Elia Tentesian. — III. European notation. The system of Papà Hambartzum's reform, although it brought a valid contribution to the preservation of the national artistic treasure, proved insufficient, and it became appropriate to resort to the system of European notation. The new masters came, graduated from European conservatories, who presented original compositions and transcriptions of popular and liturgical chants, of concert music and various other musical productions. This movement originated around the middle of the 19th century. In recent times some Armenian musicians of Constantinople thought of publishing under the title Tonakarg (canon of the feasts) the hymns of the annual festive solemnities of the Šaracan in five volumes, in Armenian-modern musical notes, compared with the European ones. So far only the first volume has been published.

The ancient cultural centers are: the convent of Tathev (9th century), the monasteries of Halpat, Sanahin, Narek and the famous one of Arkhakaghin and many others in Cilicia, in which the neumatic system and the musical art reached their apogee. At this epoch we encounter in all the centers the name Manrusmunk, the science of neumatic documents and of melismatic compositions, and sometimes the collection of those same documents.

The principal cultivators of Armenian music are: the two blood relatives Stephen of Sunia and his sister Sahakduxt (8th century), Samuel of Kamrğatzor (10th century), Theodore Alaxosik (11th century), the celebrated hymnographer St. Nerses the Gracious (12th century). After the many political vicissitudes of Armenia, which devastated and brought ruin to the glorious monasteries, today only two centers faithful to the ancient tradition exist: the Mechitarist monastery of St. Lazarus in Venice and the convent of Eġmiadzin, patriarchal seat of the dissident Armenians, and the latter only until the beginning of the European war of 1914-18. The most celebrated cultivators of Armenian sacred music are: the abbot Mechitar of Sebaste, founder of the congregation of the same name, author of numerous odes inspired and dedicated to the Madonna in sweet melodies, who also wrote some proper parts for various feasts adaptable to the divine office; Fr. Minas Bažiškean (1777-1851), learned Mechitarist musicologist and principal collaborator of Papà Hambartzum for the reform of Armenian notation; Msgr. Ignazio Ghiurekian (1833-1921), archbishop abbot general of St. Lazarus, deserving for his musical paleographic studies and for the publications: Hymnal and Canonical Hours, with Armenian neumatic notation. In the second half of the 19th century the homophony that had prevailed until then began to be replaced by polyphony, especially through the work of Cristoforo Ghara-Murza (1854-1902), author of an Armenian Mass for several voices; Makar Ekmalean (1852-1902) wrote a Mass for three and four voices (Vienna 1896) diffused in almost all the churches; Komitas Vartapet (1869-1935), the most celebrated among Armenian musicians existing so far, who among his musicological studies and numerous Armenian popular songs is the author of a valuable Mass for male voices (Paris 1933).

VIII. — ARCHAEOLOGY.

In 1918 Strzygowski held that certain architectural types of buildings of worship, especially of the central form, were an Armenian creation; it is instead undeniable that Armenian constructions are inspired by the best-known and most typical models of the various Mediterranean countries, not excluding North Africa, often with a characteristic interpretation and always with very thick masonry; a great factor of imitation is constituted by the reproduction of many sanctuaries of the Palestine, especially those relating to the Theophanies, under the impulse of St. Gregory the Illuminator, who built Christian churches on the sites of destroyed pagan temples and replaced pagan feasts with Christian ones.

The architectural forms found in the sacred buildings of A. can be summarized in the following types: quadrilateral type with dome and 4 apsidal niches; a similar type, but with the dome supported by 4 pillars; domed type with 6 apses; rectangular type with a single nave and an inscribed apse; three-nave type with pillars and an external apse; triconch with dome and a single nave; three-apsed triconch with three naves and a dome supported by 4 pillars; rectangular type with three naves, a single inscribed apse and a central dome supported by 4 pillars.

Perhaps the architecturally most remarkable work is that of the church of Svartnotz (literally "the growing powers of the Angels"), dedicated to the Angels, founded by Narses III (641-61) on the road where, according to tradition, King Tiridates would have gone to meet Gregory the Illuminator.

Older is the cathedral of Eġmiadzin, founded by Vahan Mamikonean around the year 484; constituted in its primitive form of a large square, having inside a cruciform hall with an internal apse for each arm and rectangular compartments at the corners. The dome rose in stone or wood; it was provided with a burial crypt (J. Strzygowski, Die Baukunst der Armenier, fig. 381).

Near Wagharšapat, the Sanctuary of St. Rhipsimë erected in the year 618 by the katholikós Comitas in place of the primitive basilica erected by Sahak the Great, before the middle of the 5th century; a type also reproduced at Bagaran. At Kutais the small mausoleum contained in the basilica of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem was faithfully reproduced. At Ani the church of St. Gregory founded by Abughamreutz. At Ereruk a large basilica with chapels that do not communicate with the side naves.

The geographical position and political conditions favored in A. a vast artistic activity fully distinguished by its original characteristics. Especially architecture reached a coherence of intentions and forms that in a period of greater splendor could withdraw from and even oppose the Byzantine conception, to which instead sculpture and painting remained in a certain way subject.

In the 7th century the flourishing of domed buildings begins; the Anatolian influence is not extraneous to it, yet the complex system of transmitting thrusts through arches and half-domes to the perimeter walls recalls late-Roman construction technique and the evolution of the cruciform plan along analogous Byzantine lines. The dome on trumpet squinches and with the drum pierced by windows is first set on the perimeter walls arranged according to a circular, square or polygonal plan, often with quadriconchs and corner connecting chambers. The principal monuments of this type are the church of St. Rhipsimë at Vagharšapat (618), that of Mastara (650), of Artik (7th century), of Mzket (7th century), etc. At the same time the supports become isolated from the perimeter wall, forming a central square: the oldest example is that of the church of Bagaran (624). The dome is also inserted on the basilica, determining a transept as high as the nave, in which chapels open as at Thališ (7th century). The application in basilicas with an inscribed cross, with or without additional bays, gives rise to the most complex and typical buildings of Armenian architecture, such as the churches of Odzum, Mren, of St. Gaiana at Egmiadzin, belonging for the most part to the 8th century. In them the domes are constantly hidden on the outside by a conical or pyramidal roof, and the wall masses are differentiated into clear and precise blocks that reveal on the outside the logical concatenation of the internal spaces.

In the third golden period of Armenian architecture, which runs from the 9th to the 12th century, alongside central buildings with corner chambers, as at Altamar (10th century), there are the most varied forms of domed constructions with free-standing supports within a circular perimeter (St. Saviour at Ani, St. Sergius of Xekonk, church of Bana, 11th century), square (St. Gregory of Sanahin, 11th century), polygonal with apses and radial spaces (St. Apostles at Kars, Agrak, Sarinz, 11th century) or simple polygonal (St. Gregory of Ani, 11th century). Among the domed basilicas particular mention deserves the cathedral of Ani of the 10th century. The works of this last period, besides a greater complexity of effects and constructive solutions, are distinguished by the decoration of blind arcades on columns, which bands the drum of the domes or the facing of the naves, by the cornices with broken lines or others that surround the upper part of the tall and narrow windows. Certain motifs recurring in Armenian architecture could pass through commercial and cultural exchanges into the Romanesque West, and especially into the Pisan milieu, but they did not have that formative function that some have wished to see in them.

With Western architecture, Armenian architecture presents some affinity in the tight logic of the masses and in the articulation of spaces, in contrast with Byzantine architecture which dilates those same spaces into a rarefaction of limits resolved in contemplative immobility; it does not cease to be Eastern, since it is always devoid of an inner dynamism.

Besides the churches, certain complexes of a sacred character are notable, with convents, bell towers, tombs and chapels, often enclosed by walls, true urban entities not rationally disciplined as in the West, such as the convents of Sanahin and of Svartnotz.

Armenian sculpture, subservient to architecture, developed with flat relief and a frontality of Syrian derivation friezes with fabulous animals or stories of the Old and New Testament, as in the church of Althamar (10th century) or in St. Gregory of Amaghu (12th century). Entirely subject to provincial Byzantine canons appears painting in the poor and late pictorial cycles of the Saviour and of St. Gregory at Ani, which already reach the 13th century. The oldest Armenian miniature, on the other hand, descends from Syrian forms, and after the year 1000 reached its own individuality founded on the fantastic richness of ornament, not immune to some decorative inspiration of Muslim origin.

In more recent production A. settled into an empty repetition of themes and formulas which, being deprived of all their reason for being, have little interest. - See Plates CXXXV-CXXXVI.

Guglielmo Matthiae