BROTHERS UNITORS. – Armenian religious (El-barg Müabanoq), founded in the first half of the fourteenth century by GIOVANNI da Qinà, who had been converted to the Catholic faith by the Dominican bishop BARTOLOMEO da Bologna. The purpose of the Institute was the union of the Armenian Church with the Holy See of Rome. The B.U. followed the Rule of St. Augustine and most of the constitutions of the Dominicans. They dressed as Dominican tertiaries and in 1337 also adopted the Dominican rite, though retaining Armenian as the liturgical language.
The beginnings of the Congregation and its papal approval date to the year 1331, but the profession of its founders seems to have taken place only in 1344. In 1356 the B.U. were placed under the jurisdiction of the Master General of the Dominicans, and in 1383 their Congregation was transformed into an Armenian province of the Order of Preachers, which died out in the early nineteenth century. The Institute of the B.U. spread mainly in eastern Armenia, Georgia, Persia, and Crimea. Many bishops, archbishops, and martyrs came from its ranks. In the literary field, the B.U. distinguished themselves by their translations of Catholic theological works into Armenian.