Christianity in Armenia

The origin of the Armenian Church dates back to the apostolic age. According to tradition well supported by historical evidence, Christianity was preached in Armenia as early as the second half of the first century by the two disciples of Jesus Christ, namely, Thaddeus and Bartholomew. During the first three centuries Christianity in Armenia was a hidden religion under heavy persecution.

It was at the beginning of the fourth century, 301 AD, that Christianity was officially accepted by the Armenians as the state religion. It should also be remembered that the idea of Christianity as state religion was an innovation at that time.

St. Gregory the Illuminator, the patron Saint of the Armenian Church, and King Thiridates III of Armenia, played a pivotal role in the official christianization of the country. It is a well-recognized historical fact that the Armenians were the first nation to formally adhere to Christianity.

Events of the fifth century were critical to the making of a distinctively Armenian Christian culture and identity. The foremost of these was the invention of the Armenian alphabet by the monk and scholar Mesrob Mashdots. Translations of scriptures, commentaries, liturgy, theology, and histories were made. Τhe fifth century witnessed the first flourishing of original Armenian literature. The Battle of Avarayr in 451 against the Persians, although a defeat for the Armenians under Vartan Mamigonian, has been remembered as critical for winning the Armenians the right to practice their Christian belief.

The invention of the Armenian alphabet brought on the Golden Age of Armenian literature. Students were sent to the centers of classical and Christian learning in Edessa, Caesarea, Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, and Athens, to prepare themselves to translate the Bible, the liturgy, the important writings of Greek and Assyrian church fathers, and classical literature – Greek and Latin – into Armenian. The Bible, translated from the Septuagint, was finished in a few years; most of the Patristics were translated within thirty years; but the whole process, including the translation of secular books, lasted some two hundred years.

The “Holy Translators” are highly revered in the Armenian Church. Many of the works translated have since been lost in their Greek or Assyrian original, but have been preserved in the Armenian.

Original works were also written during the Golden Age, including works on history, philosophy, hagiography, homilies, hymns, and apologetics. Later works on the sciences were written. While much has been lost due to the ravages of war and time, many are preserved today in the great Manuscript Library of the Matenadaran in Yerevan, Armenia (in which, for example, there are almost three hundred manuscripts of Aristotle’s works) and in the Armenian monasteries at Jerusalem, Venice, and Vienna.

Thus, the Armenian Church provided the Armenian people with a strong spiritual wealth and national culture just at the time the Armenian state was losing its political independence.

The Catholicosate

St. Gregory the Illuminator became the organizer of the Armenian Church hierarchy. From that time on, the heads of the Armenian Church have been called Catholicos and still hold the same title. St. Gregory chose as the site of the Catholicosate then, the capital city of Vagharshapat, in Armenia. He built the pontifical residence at St. Etchmiadzin, meaning the place where the Only-Begotten Son has descended, according to the vision in which he saw the Only-Begotten Son of God coming down from heaven with a golden hammer in his hand, to locate the site of the new cathedral to be built in 302. The continuous upheavals, the barbaric attacks and war clashes forced the political power to move to safer places. The Church leadership moved as well to different locations together with the political authority.

Thus, in 485, the Catholicosate was transferred to the new capital Tvin. In the 10th century it moved from Dvin to Dzoravank, then to Aghtamar, and then to Ani (992). After the fall of Ani and the Armenian Kingdom of Bagratids in 1045, masses of Armenians migrated to Cilicia. The Catholicosate, together with the people, settled finally in Sis (1293), the capital of the Cilician Kingdom, where it remained for seven centuries. After the fall of the Armenian Kingdom in Cilicia, in 1375, the Church also assumed the role of national leadership, and the Catholicos was recognized as Ethnarch (head of nation). This national responsibility considerably broadened the scope of the Church’s mission.

Two Catholicosates within the Armenian Church

The existence of two Catholicosates within the Armenian Church, namely the Catholicosate of Etchmiadzin (the Catholicosate of All Armenians), in Etchmiadzin, Armenia, and the Catholicosate of the Great House of Cilicia, Antelias-Lebanon, is due to historical circumstances. In the 10th century, when Armenia was devastated by Seljuks, many Armenians left their homeland and came to settle in Cilicia, where they re-organized their political, ecclesiastical and cultural life. The Catholicosate also took refuge in Cilicia.

In 1375 the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia was destroyed. Cilicia became a battleground for hostile Seljuks, Mamluks and other invaders. In the meantime Armenia was having a relatively peaceful time. The deteriorating situation in Cilicia on one hand and the growing cultural and ecclesiastical awakening in Armenia on the other, led the bishops of Armenia to elect a Catholicos in Etchmiadzin, which had ceased to function as Catholicosal See after 485. Thus, in 1441, a new Catholicos was elected in Etchmiadzin in the person of Kirakos Virapetsi. At the same time Krikor Moussapegiants (1439-1446) was the Catholicos of Cilicia. Therefore, since 1441, there have been two Catholicosates in the Armenian Church with equal rights and privileges, and with their respective jurisdictions. The primacy of honor of the Catholicosate of Etchmiadzin has always been recognized by the Catholicosate of Cilicia.

Throughout much of its history, the Armenian Orthodox Apostolic Church has been an instrument of the Armenian nation’s survival. It has been the Church, indeed, that has preserved both the religious and the national consciousness, during the many centuries under the Turkish rule, in which there was no Armenian state.

The Armenian Church was greatly affected by two events in the twentieth century. The first Genocide of the 20th century, perpetrated in 1915 by Ottoman Turkey, was a huge blow to the Armenian Church. The extermination of 1.5 million Armenians was accompanied by looting and destruction not only of their possessions but also of thousands of temples, monasteries and monuments on the historic lands of Western Armenia. On the other hand, the Sovietization of Eastern Armenia imposed seven decades of official atheism, despite the fact that the people preserved their faith. The Church, however, withstood the hardships, it flourished in the Armenian diaspora, and has regained its forces after the independence of the Republic of Armenia in 1991.

Today, the Armenian Church, which in 2001 commemorated the 1700th anniversary of the acceptance of Christianity, continues to serve its people in the Homeland and the Diaspora and remains a vital institution in the life of the people.