NARSES, LAMPRONENSE. – Armenian archbishop of Tarsus in Cilicia, born in 1153, died on 14 July 1198. His father, Oschin II, lord of Lampron, belonged to the noblest family of Armenia. He was first a monk in the monastery of Sghevra, then in that of Sagheru on Mount Taurus. At the age of 23 or 24 he was appointed archbishop of Tarsus by Gregorio IV Degha.
N. took an active part in the political and religious life of his time; he contributed to the foundation of the Armenian kingdom of Cilicia and to the attempts at union with the Chalcedonians, which led to the union of the Armenian Church of Cilicia with that of Rome in 1198, a few months after N.’s death. Earlier, following in the footsteps of his uncle, the katholikós Narses Glaiense, N. took part in the Synod of Rom-Gla (1179) and was the driving force behind the Synod of Tarsus (1196–77); indeed, it was N. who led the Armenian embassy to Byzantium in 1197. At the same time, N., viewed with suspicion by not a few Armenians because of his pro-Catholicism, which led him to adopt certain liturgical usages and doctrinal formulas of the Latins, became the strongest support of Prince Leone II and of the katholikós Gregorio VI Abirad in the negotiations with Celestine III aimed at union. N. is regarded as a saint in the Armenian Church, and is the greatest Armenian theologian of the 12th century. He is said to have written some fifty books. Preserved are the Synodal Oration delivered at the Council of Tarsus (Italian trans. by G. B. Aucher, Venice 1812; others attribute it to the Council of Rom-Gla); the treatise on the Institution of the Church and on the Mystery of the Mass, published in Armenian (Venice 1847), of which E. Dulaurier publishes lengthy summaries in Armenian and French in Recueil des histoires des Croisades, Documents arméniens (I, Paris 1869, pp. 569–603); the Collection of Documents concerning the Controversies with the Syrians and the Greeks, published in Armenian (Paris 1788, Constantinople 1825); the Commentaries on the Psalms, the Books of Solomon, and the Minor Prophets, of which only the latter was printed (ibid. 1826); and several homilies and letters published in Venice (1787). His breadth of spirit, the thoroughness of the studies he pursued in Byzantium, Antioch, Cyprus, and on the Black Mountain, and above all the very circumstances in which he lived, led N. into the field of broad doctrinal concessions in matters of Christological doctrine.