THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
Athenogenes (Atanagines), who were now made the national saints. Gregory then went south and at Ashtishat in the country of Taron destroyed the most celebrated sanctuary of the country, the temple of Vahagn, Anahid, and Astghik, and in its place the splendid Christ-Church, " the first and great church, the mother of all Armenian churches," was erected. From Taron Gregory went to the province of Ararat, where stood the famous sanctuary of the god Vanatur of Bagavan. This, too, was turned into a church of St. John and St. Athenogenes, and the people who had gathered there from the northeast were baptized.
Three things may be noticed in this newly constituted Armenian Church. First, its national character. Gregory preached in the native tongue; the sons of the former idolatrous priests were educated in a Christian school, which formed the seminary for future bishops; pupils of this school gradually occupied the twelve episcopal sees, established by Gregory. The second feature is the compulsory conversion, and the third the
Judaic character of the church. The
3. History patriarchate has its parallel rather
to 600. in the Jewish high-priesthood than
in specific Christian distinctions; like the episcopate, it became hereditary in some families. The superior clergy, as a rule, were married. Gregory was followed by his younger son, Aristakes, who in 325 attended the Council of Nica?a; then by his elder son Vrtanes, who made his elder son Gregory catholicos of the Iberians and Albanians. Nerses, great-grandson of Vrtanes, ordained catholicos at the urgent wish of king and people, in 365 convened a synod at Ashtishat, which regulated marriages between relatives, limited the excessive mourning over the dead, and founded the first monasteries, the first asylums for widows, orphans, and the sick, and the first caravansaries for travelers. King Arshag, displeased with the order of things, appointed an anticatholicos, but when Arshag was made prisoner by the Persians, Nerses acted as regent for the minor king Pap (367-374). As soon as the latter became of age he abolished many things introduced by Nerses, and poisoned him before 374. Basil of Csesarea anathematized the Armenian kingdom and refused to consecrate a new catholicos. But King Pap found pliant clerics who were willing to receive ordination from native bishops. After Nerses's death Armenia was definitely freed from all spiritual connection with Caesarea and made ecclesiastically independent. About 390 Sahag the Great, the Parthian, Nerses' son, was made catholicos. His government forms the most important turning-point of the Armenian Church. Like his father he promoted monasticism; he opposed the deposition of the last king Ardashes and the turning of Armenia into a Persian satrapy (428). But the nobility had its way and the Persian government, by making use of this opposition, deposed the influential Sahag and appointed two Syrians in succession as catholicoi. Through the efforts of Sahag and Mesrob, the Syrian language was now superseded by the Armenian. The continued connection with Greece preserved the Armenian
Church from being crippled and isolated. At the request of the nobility, Sahag was again made catholicos before he died (Sept. 15, 439). He was the last in the male line of the family of Gregory the Illuminator. The family estate went to his daughter's sons, the Mamikonians, whereas the dignity of catholicos, after Greco-Oriental custom, was now given to monks. Sahag's successor, Joseph, held a synod at Sahapivan to remove certain abuses. The Council of Chalcedon (451), which later Armenians condemned, had no effect upon the contemporaries, because King Yezdigerd II. (438-457) endeavored to make Mazdaism the ruling religion in Armenia. The princes yielded at first, but soon the people revolted, and the magi and their temples had to suffer. Vartan the Mamikonian stood at the head, but the Armenians were defeated in 451 and many of the nobles and clerics were deported to Persia, where they suffered martyrdom after many years of imprisonment. One of these martyrs was Joseph the catholicos (454). The persecution ceased in 484, and during the time of peace which now followed, the Armenians were wholly influenced by the ruling Greek-Oriental theology, and Zeno's Henotikon (482) became their rule of faith. The synod at Vagharshabad, which was convened in 491 by the catholicos Babken and which was attended not only by the Armenian bishops but also by the Albanian and Iberian, solemnly condemned the Council of Chalcedon. This synod is epoch-making in the Armenian Church. From now on the Armenians, as well as the Syrians and Egyptians accept only the strict Monophysitic doctrine as orthodox (cf. A. Ter Mikelian, Die armenische Kirche in ihren Beziehungen zur byzantinischen, Leipsic, 1892). With the Persian government the clergy had thus far lived in peace. But an effort to erect a temple of fire in the capital Duin in 571 led to a massacre of the magi and Persians. The Armenians for the time being attached themselves to the Romans. Many priests and the catholicos fled to Constantinople, where the latter died. Armenia remained under Persian sway.
A new epoch in the Armenian Church begins under Emperor Heraclius. After he had restored the cross to Jerusalem in 629, he 4. To 1 166. opened negotiations with the Monophysites of Syria, which seemed to favor a union. The Armenian catholicos Ezr also shared in them, and partook with the emperor in the celebration of the eucharist. The union lasted during the lifetime of Heraclius. The rise of Islam changed the country's policy toward Rome. The national hatred between Armenians and Greeks became most violent. The Greek soldiers stationed in Armenia complained that they were treated like infidels. Nerses III., Ezr's successor, had been educated in Greece and secretly favored the Chalcedonian Council (i.e., the Monothelite doctrine), but the synod at Duin, which met at the wish of the emperor under the presidency of Nerses, condemned again in the most solemn manner the Council of Chalcedon. But when in 652 the emperor Constantine appeared at Duin, the decisions of Chalcedon were solemnly proclaimed on Sunday in the