COSMA da CARBONIANO (Der Gomidas Kennmurgian), blessed. — Armenian, born in Constantinople in 1656; died in 1707. Married and parish priest of the dissident church of S. Giorgio in his native city, he and his family converted to Catholicism around 1696, at a time when the excessively numerous reconciliations of Armenians with the Roman Church were causing alarm among the dissidents. Accused in 1707 before the Turkish authorities as a European agent bent on undermining peace among the peoples, the vizier condemned him, albeit reluctantly, to decapitation. He was beatified in 1929; feast on 5 November.
BIBL.: AAS, 21 (1929), pp. 197–99, 325–26, 482–85; H. Riondel, Une page tragique de l'histoire religieuse du Levant. Paris 1929; F. L. Agagianian, Il b. Gomidas Kennmurgian, C. da C., Rome 1929; A. Butter-H. Thurston, The Lives of the Saints, XI, London 1938, pp. 64–67.