NARSES, LAMPRONIAN. - Armenian archbishop of Tarsus in Cilicia, b. in 1153, d. 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 created archbishop of Tarsus by Gregory IV Degha.
N. took an active part in the political and religious life of his time, contributed to the founding 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 the death of N. Earlier, following in the footsteps of his uncle, the katholikos Narses Glaiense, N. took part in the Synod of Rom-Gla (1179) and was the soul of the Synod of Tarsus (1196-77); indeed it was N. who led the embassy of the Armenians to Byzantium in 1197. But at the same time N., suspected by not a few Armenians because of his pro-Catholicism, which led him to adopt certain liturgical usages and dogmatic formulas of the Latins, became the most effective support of Prince Leo II and of the katholikos Gregory VI Abirad for the negotiations with Celestine III with a view to 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 about fifty books. There survive the Synodal Oration delivered in the Council of Tarsus (It. trans. by G. B. Aucher, Venice 1812; others refer 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 long summaries in Armenian and French, Recueil des histoires des Croisades, Documents arméniens (I, Paris 1869, pp. 569-603); the Collection of documents concerning the controversies with the Syrians and with the Greeks published in Armenian (Paris 1788, Constantinople 1825); the Commentaries on the Psalms, on the books of Solomon and on the Minor Prophets, of which only the last was printed (ibid. 1826); and some homilies and letters published at Venice (1787). The breadth of his spirit, the completeness of the studies undertaken at Byzantium, Antioch, Cyprus and on the Black Mountain, and principally the very circumstances in which he lived, brought N. onto the ground of broad dogmatic concessions in the field of Christological doctrines.
Bibliography7 works
Maurizio Gordillo