EĞMIADZIN. – Armenian patriarchal see. Etymologically, it means “Descent of the Only-Begotten,” a name deriving from the legend of a vision attributed to St. Gregorio Illuminatore, who is said to have seen Christ descend near the village of Valaršapat, in the province of Ajrarat, 20 km west of the present city of Erivan, and mark with a golden hammer the site corresponding to the martyrdom of the holy virgins Hriphsimiane, where the first Armenian cathedral church was to be erected.
Historically, however, the first Armenian cathedral, Katholik, with the see of the first katholikoi, is to be sought for a century and a half at Aštišat, in the province of Taran, much farther west than Valaršapat. Here, instead,
there was only the bishop of the Armenian court, who during the struggles between the authentic Katholikós and the Armenian king occasionally and abusively replaced the katholikós.
The account of this vision, handed down in the History of Agniangelo (ed. Venice 1862, chs. 102, 120), is posthumous and betrays the compiler’s concern to justify Armenian autocaphy, which arose in the second half of the 5th century as a result of the new political circumstances of Armenia, and perhaps also to lend significance to the transfer of the see from Aštišat toward the province of Ajrarat, specifically to Dwin (465 or 484), the residence of the Persian and subsequently Arab satraps southeast of Valaršapat.
After residing for three and a half centuries at Dwin, the Armenian katholikosal see followed the emigration of the Armenian people, driven on by the barbarian hordes of greater Asia, changing its location more than seven times before settling, under Gregorio VII di Anarzapa, definitively in Sis (1294), the capital of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia.
When the Kingdom of Cilicia fell (1375), part of the Armenian people headed toward Europe, while part dispersed throughout Asia Minor; Cilicia was impoverished, and these consequences were also suffered by the Armenian patriarchal see. The unwarranted interference of the infidel rulers increased its decline, causing the Eastern bishops to conceive the long-cherished idea of transferring the see of St. Gregorio to E., near the village of Valaršapat.
The promoter of this was Tommaso Vardapet Medsophesi. His personal motives, propagated zealously in the East, also gave this initiative, good in itself, a secessionist orientation with regard to Rome.
The historical name of Valaršapat, with its allure as the cradle of Armenian Christianity, strengthened Tommaso’s campaign. When Gregorio IX katholikós, already resident at Sis, declined the invitation to transfer to E., an electoral synod was convoked there, and a certain hermit of the monastery of Khor-Virap, named Kirakos, was elected katholikós at the see of E. on 19 December 1441. Besides the katholikós of the Aluani, the synod consisted of 13 Eastern bishops, including the four of the principal sees, whose presence, according to a conviction that had prevailed for centuries, was deemed indispensable for the canonicity of the elections of the katholikoi. Many vardapet, ogumeni, and magnates were present; eleven other Eastern bishops, detained by the infidels, and the katholikós of Althamar also gave their adherence.
Kirakos’s first act was to invite the nation to concord, and for this reason he lifted the excommunication that had weighed upon Althamar for centuries. Gregorio IX, however, continued to exercise his jurisdiction at Sis, regarding E. as an anti-see. Antagonisms between the two sees were not lacking. The transfer to E., although lacking canonical support, increased the influence of this see over the centuries, because it succeeded in drawing the majority of the Armenian episcopal sees around it and finally imposing itself as the see of the supreme katholikós of all Armenians scattered throughout the world, including the katholikoi of Sis. The very frequent relations with the Holy See in the 16th and 17th centuries obtained for E. a tacit universal recognition, while Sis remained of secondary importance.
From 1441 to the present, E. has had 42 katholikoi. Of the 100 eparchies—between episcopal sees and monastic ordinariates—that were counted until the period preceding the First World War, only 15 were under the immediate obedience of Sis, 4 of Jerusalem, and 3 of Althamar, whereas no fewer than 70 eparchies obeyed E. directly. After the great Armenian massacres of 1915, and following the Sovietization of the small Armenian republic of Transcaucasia, the 100 dissident Armenian eparchies were reduced to little more than a dozen, scattered throughout the world; they continue to look to the see of E. as their religious center, more symbolic than real.
1890, p. 215 ff. (in Armenian); H. Gelzer, Die Anfänge der armen. Kirche, Munich 1895, pp. 117-28; S. Weber, Die katholische Kirche in Armenien, vor der Trennung, Freiburg im Breisgau 1903, pp. 177-82; F. Tournebize, Heut. polit. et relig. de l’Arménie, Paris 1910, pp. 146 ff., 444-48. Garabed Amaduni