EGMADZIN. - The Armenian patriarchal see. Etymologically it means "Descent of the Only-Begotten," a name derived from the legend of a vision attributed to St. Gregory the Illuminator, who is said to have seen Christ descend near the village of Valaršapat, in the province of Ararat, 20 km west of the present-day city of Erivan, and mark with a golden hammer the site corresponding to the martyrdom of the holy virgins Hirpishimiane, where the first Armenian cathedral church was to be built.
Historically, however, the first Armenian cathedral, the Katholikè, along with the seat of the first katholikoi, is to be sought for a century and a half at Aštit, in the province of Taron, much farther west of Valaršapat. At Valaršapat there was only the bishop of the Armenian court, who during the disputes between the authentic katholikòs and the Armenian king sometimes unlawfully substituted for the katholikòs.
The narrative of this vision, transmitted by the History of Agathangelos (ed. Venice 1862, chaps. 102, 120), is posthumous and betrays the compiler's concern to justify Armenian autocephaly, which occurred in the second half of the 5th century following the new political circumstances of Armenia, and perhaps to emphasize the transfer of the see from Aštit to the province of Ararat and precisely to Dwin (495 or 484), the residence of Persian and later Arab satraps southeast of Valaršapat.
The Armenian katholikosal see, after residing for three and a half centuries at Dwin, followed the migratory movement of the Armenian people, driven by the barbarian hordes of Greater Asia, changing more than seven locations before finally settling, under Gregory VII of Anarazpa, definitively in the capital of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, Sis (1294).
After the fall of the Kingdom of Cilicia (1375), part of the Armenian people dispersed into Europe, part spread across Asia Minor; Cilicia was left impoverished, and these consequences were also suffered by the Armenian patriarchal see. The unwarranted interference of infidel rulers increased its decline, which led the Eastern bishops to revive the long-held idea of transferring the see of St. Gregory II. E. near the village of Valaršapat.
The promoter of this was Thomas Vardapet Medsophesti. His personal motives, ardently propagated in the East, also gave this otherwise good initiative a secessionist direction with regard to Rome.
The historical name of Valaršapat, with its charm of Armenian Christian worship, lent strength to Thomas's campaign. When Gregory IX, the katholikòs already resident in Sis, declined the invitation to move to E., an elective synod was convened there, consisting of a certain anchorite from the monastery of Khor-Virap named Kirakos, who was elected katholikòs in the see of E. on December 19, 1441. The synod was composed, in addition to the katholikòs of the Aluank', of 13 Eastern bishops, including the four of the principal sees, whose presence, according to centuries-old conviction, was deemed indispensable for the canonical validity of the election of the katholikòs. Many vedapet, archimandrites, and magnates were also present; another 11 Eastern bishops, detained by the infidels, and the katholikòs of Althamar adhered to the decision.
Kirakos's first act was to invite the nation to concord, and for this purpose he lifted the excommunication that had weighed for centuries on Althamar. Gregory IX, however, continued to exercise his jurisdiction in Sis, regarding E. as an anti-see. The antagonisms between the two sees did not fail to arise. The transfer to E., although lacking canonical support, increased the influence of this see through the centuries because it succeeded in rallying around it the majority of the Armenian episcopal sees and ultimately imposed itself as the see of the supreme katholikòs of all Armenians scattered throughout the world, even over the katholikòs of Sis. The very frequent relations with the Holy See in the 15th-16th centuries obtained for E. a tacit universal recognition, while Sis remained of secondary rank.
E. from 1441 to the present has seen 42 katholikoi. Of the 100 eparchies, including episcopal sees and monastic ordinariates, that existed up to the pre-war period of 1914-18, only 15 were under the immediate obedience of Sis, 4 of Jerusalem, 3 of Althamar, while as many as 79 eparchies obeyed directly to E. After the great Armenian massacres of 1915 and the Sovietization of the small Armenian republic of Transcaucasia, the 100 dissident Armenian eparchies have been reduced to little more than a dozen scattered around the world, which continue to look to the see of E. as their religious center, more symbolic than real.