KORIUN. — Armenian historian of the 5th century, author of a biography of Mastotz, the inventor of the Armenian alphabet and his teacher.
Although the information he transmits is fragmentary, the book is of considerable importance, since K. is perhaps the only contemporary of Mastotz to recount the invention of the alphabet. The language of the biography, eminently classical, nevertheless has distinctive characteristics of its own, and together with Agathangelus and Faustus of Byzantium forms a group apart.
BIBL.: Critical edition by G. Fendeglian with an introductory study, Jerusalem 1930; German version, Tübingen 1841; French translation: V. Langlois, in Collection historique des anciens et modernes arm., II, Paris 1870; N. Adontz, K., in Handes Amorya, 1927, pp. 273, 395; 1928, p. 76. Cirillo Kibarian