COSMA da Carboniano (Der Gomidas Keumurgian), Blessed. — An Armenian, born in Constantinople in 1656; died in 1707. Married and parish priest of the dissident church of St. George in his native city, he converted to Catholicism with his family around 1696, at a time when the numerous reconciliations of Armenians with the Roman Church were causing alarm among the dissidents. In 1707, he was accused before the Turkish authorities of being a European agent subverting the peace among the peoples; the vizier, though reluctantly, condemned him to beheading. He was beatified in 1929; feast day November 5.
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 Keumurgian, C. da C., Rome 1929; A. Butter-H. Thurston, The Lives of the Saints, XI, London 1938, pp. 64-67.