Ciamcian, Michele

CIAMCIAN, MICHELE. - Armenian Mechitarist monk of Venice, b. in Constantinople in 1738, d. there in 1823. A distinguished figure as a learned Orientalist, an apostle of the union of the Armenians with the Church of Rome in his successive residences of Constantinople, Aleppo, Basra, Transylvania. He spent a great part of his life at St. Lazarus in Venice, among books and Armenian codices.

He attacked the errors of Giacomo Nalian, dissident Armenian patriarch of Constantinople, in his powerful apologetic work, which he called Shield of Orthodoxy, in 4 thick volumes. Worthy of great renown is the Commentary on the Psalms, in 10 vols., composed on the direct study of the Hebrew text. His masterpiece, however, is the Armenian History, a bold undertaking for his age, in 3 vols. in 4to, based on the direct study of Oriental sources, and which still today is the most complete and systematic Armenian history. An abridged English translation was made of this work in Armenian (M. Chamichian, History of Armenia, 2 vols., Calcutta 1827).

C. also left a number of ascetic and devotional works: The Altar of Incense, Weekly Spiritual Exercises, Homilies for the Feasts of the Virgin, etc., all written in classical Armenian. A Journey in Persia, Meditations, and a Latin-Armenian Dictionary are still unpublished.

Elia Peckian