MECHITARISTS. - Armenian hieromonks, called thus from the name of their founder Mechitar (v.). Although the initial designation was perhaps "Armenian Monks of St. Anthony Abbot," nevertheless, while the founder was still alive, they were also called M., a title that later became common.

The Constitutions bear the imprint of the organization of the Western regular Orders, with Armenian disciplinary elements and with the peculiar purpose of the apostolate among the Armenians, under the threefold form: missions, intellectual activity through the press and the education of youth. A general abbot presides over the council of the general assistants, ad vitam.

In 1773, a schismatic movement led by two monks, gave rise to an autonomous branch of the M., established first at Trieste and, from the beginning of the 19th century, at Vienna.

MECHITARISTS - His Eminence Cardinal Gregory Peter XV Agagianian, Patriarch of Cilicia of the Armenians, while pontificating at St. Lazarus for the centenary celebrations of Abbot Mechitar.(phot. Ferrassi)

Both Congregations have carried out intense missionary, educational and cultural activity for the benefit of the Armenian nation. Besides the two mother houses of Venice and Vienna, where the two respective abbots general reside and where two efficient printing presses have been in operation for centuries, various missionary stations, schools and colleges of the M., scattered throughout the principal cities of the former Ottoman Empire, of Caucasian Armenia and of the diaspora, of Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, etc., radiate their beneficent work.

In the intellectual field the M., though few in number, have to their credit a production remarkable in quality and quantity, without equal in the nation: more than three thousand works; two monthly reviews, Pazmaveb and Handés-Amsorya (the first has already passed a century of life), periodically illustrate the Armenological cultural movement. In the educational field, the two century-old lyceal Colleges of Samuel Moorat and of Raphael in Venice, directed by the M. of Venice, are famous.

Bibliography6 works

BIBL.: V. Langlois, Notice sur le cravant Arménien de l'Île de St-Lazare, 1st ed., Venice 1869; B. Sarkissian, Bicentenaria attività letteraria dell'Ordine mechitarista di Venezia, ibid. 1905 (in Armenian); id., Bicentenaria attività scolastica dell'Ordine mechitarista di Venezia, ibid. 1936 (in Armenian); Mechitar, in Pazmaveb, 1901, nos. 7-9; id., G. Marinelli, Angeli d'Oriente in Venezia, ibid. 1939; M. A. van den Oudenrijn, Eine armenische Insel in Abendland, Venice 1940. For the M. of Vienna: v. Inglisian, s. v. in LThK, VII, pp. 24-35, with bibliography.

Garabed Amaduni

@incollection{ec8_mechitaristi, author = {Amaduni, Garabed}, title = {Mechitaristi}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {VIII}, pages = {564--565}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1952}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/mechitaristi} }

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Mechitarists

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