From the last decades of the 17th century onwards, the Armenian communities of the Ottoman Empire became the target of a renewed and more successful work of Catholic apostolate. The supple and somehow ambiguous strategy of the former missionaries based mostly on cultivating good relations with the hierarchy of the Armenian Apostolic church and on tolerating the practice of communicatio in sacris, was replaced by a more intransigent attitude, which aimed at the construction of clear-cut confessional boundaries. My paper examines the problems arising within the Empire’s most important Armenian community, that of Constantinople, as a consequence of this new approach. In particular, I will take into consideration the intellectual and practical tools employed at the time to shape an “Armenian Catholic identity” (analyzing the different methods used by the European and Armenian missionaries) as well as the reaction of the Apostolic hierarchy and of the Ottoman authorities.

Draft for the Session “ETH06b: Early Medieval Migrations II: Migrations in Byzantium and Armenia”, European Social Science History Conference Vienna 2014 (Thursday 24 April 2014, 14.00 - 16.00) Introduction Armenian mobility in the early Middle Ages has found some attention in the scholarly community. This is especially true for the migration of individuals and groups towards the Byzantine Empire. A considerable amount of this research has focused on the carriers and histories of individual aristocrats or noble families of Armenian origin; the obviously significant share of these in the Byzantine elite has even led to formulations such as Byzantium being a “Greco-Armenian Empire”. While, as expected, evidence for the elite stratum is relatively dense, larger scale migration of members of the lower aristocracy (“azat”, within the ranking system of Armenian nobility, see below) or non-aristocrats (“anazat”) can also be traced with regard to the overall movement of groups within the entire Byzantine sphere. In contrast to the nobility, however, the life stories and strategies of individuals of these backgrounds very rarely can be reconstructed on the basis of our evidence. In all cases, the actual significance of an “Armenian” identity for individuals and groups identified as “Armenian” by contemporary sources or modern day scholarship (on the basis of onomastic material, for instance ) respectively the changeability of elements of identity (language, religious affiliation, naming practices) has found less attention in comparison with efforts to trace the “Armenian element” in Byzantium. Similar observations can be made with regard to scholarship on Armenian mobility into the spheres of the “Eastern” empire of Sasanian Persia and later the Arab Caliphate respectively the Islamic states; especially the change of the religious affiliation and the emergence of “Muslim Armenians” has caused some debate with regard to their qualification as “real” Armenians. For the Byzantine case, the magisterial article by Nina Garsoïan on “Problems of Armenian integration into the Byzantine Empire” (1998) has not only summed up earlier research, but has also highlighted the complexities and dynamics of identity and of spatial as well as “cultural” mobility. Regarding the Islamic World the most recently published three volumes by Seta B. Dadoyan, who already had written an important study on Armenians in the Fatimid Empire, equally have produced new insights into similar phenomena. On this basis, also an attempt to adapt recent approaches from migration history on the early medieval mobility of Armenians is possible. Within the field, the “Armenian diaspora” of course has found attention, but this is especially true for its development since the early modern period ; one has to mention here also the recent monograph by Sebouh Aslanian on the global trading diaspora of the Armenian of New Julfa in Persia in the 17th century. Yet, as we will demonstrate in this paper, concepts developed by historians of migrations in the last decades can be also be implemented effectively for earlier periods. Useful are of course also categories of a more traditional typology of migration such as duration, distance or scale (in terms of numbers of individuals) of mobility. But in order to illustrate the actual complexity of mobilities and identity construction as outlined by Garsoïan or Dadoyan, a “systems approach” towards migration phenomena seems promising. Therefore, we survey material on the interplay between socio-economic, political and spatial structures both in the “society of departure” and in the “receiving societies” , which very much defined the scope of action, and the actual agency of individuals and groups. Equally, we will try to identify networks established and/or used by individuals to effect mobility as well as integration within the social framework in the places of destination; yet, also these networks could also work as constraining factors. The character of evidence from our period of course does not allow for a systematic quantitative survey on a large sample, but enables us to accumulate “micro-histories” of individuals and smaller groups across the centuries, which may provide inferences on general trends and mechanisms. In the following, we will – mostly on the basis of Armenian, Greek and Latin sources – focus on Armenian migration towards the Byzantine Empire, but will also include episodes of mobility towards the imperial spheres in the east (Sasanian Persia, the Caliphate) within the life stories of some of the better documented individuals.

My initiative to study the Armenian experience in the medieval Islamic world through paradigmatic cases of interaction takes its beginnings from the Armenian condition in the Near Eastern region. It is best explained by Nietzsche's dictum sum ergo cogito, "I exist therefore I think:' Existential in many respects, this questioning is also its motive and inner dimension. In this perspective, writing about the history of Armenians in the medieval Islamic world means trying to make sense of the circumstances. It means an effort to create/define, rather, to recreate/ redefine the historicity of experiences. Being Armenian, almost universally, is having a mobile line of ethnic ancestry that is laden with narratives from the vast historic Armenian oikoumene or habitat from Iran to Constantinople and from the Caucasus to Egypt. This study reflects, then, a questioning that a minimal level of concern about my Armenological Dasein, or my being an Armenologist requires. The condition of my generation of the 1960s, in particular, meant growing up in trilingual and pluricultural communities in ancient cities of mosques, churches, suks, local and missionary schools, and eastern/ western ideologies and folklore(s). Above all, it meant carrying a heavy luggage of vaguely perceived legacies, while learning-living in local and cosmopolitan networks of relations.

This article explores the little studied role of the Rus princes and the Rus prelates of the Byzantine Church in the establishment of immediate contacts between the papal court and the rulers of the Nicene Empire in the mid thirteenth century. These resulted in a new round of negotiations for the union of the Roman Church and the Byzantine Church. At the heart of these contacts was not only the mutual desire of the Latins and Greeks to restore church unity, but also the action of a third force, namely the political ambitions of the Mongol khan toward Christian rulers of the West and, above all, the pope. These rulers took the initiative to turn to him with a proposal for peace in the aftermath of the devastating Mongol invasion that reached Central Europe in 1241-2.