Armenian Church History and Saints

Gregory of Narek, the most remarkable Armenian author of all times
and Doctor of the Church, was a master of two discursive modes,
one pessimistic and the other full of light. This article analyses his
ways of comprehending the will of man and will of God through
these two modes.

Published by Four Courts Press.

Since late antiquity, northern Mesopotamia had been the cradle of two main Christian communities, namely, the Church of the East and the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch. From the late Middle Ages onwards, however, their newly-created Catholic counterparts, as well as Protestant offshoots in the modern period, have further added to this uneasy and often antagonistic mix. Despite these Churches sharing a common Syriac liturgical language, and their members speaking Neo-Aramaic and sharing a common Assyrian ethnicity and heritage, they have time and again found themselves at loggerheads in the historical record over differences in theology, Christology, allegiance and claims to apostolic succession. With this diversification of creeds and loyalties amongst the Syriac Churches, there also came a need for each community to legitimise, consolidate and renew itself as it saw fit in order to be able to remain in competition with its ‘rivals.’ Part of this process was embodied in the appropriation of churches and monasteries belonging to the ‘others’ and their modification to conform to the ecclesiastical norms of the new owners.

In this study, cases of churches which have largely changed hands between the Church of the East, Syriac Orthodox Church, Chaldean Catholic Church and Syriac Catholic Church will be discussed in an effort to illustrate this un-Christian process of control, appropriation and dispossession, as well as the transferral and imposition of one form of Christian expression on an edifice which previously belonged to another denomination. Examples of church buildings in Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran will hence be discussed in an effort to understand the way in which this heritage is appropriated and transferred, as well as the method through which one denomination’s own heritage can be transferred to an existing structure built by an opposing one.

The major aim of this article is to study the Armenian Letter “On the Image-Fighters” by Vrt’anes K’ert’oł (approx. seventh century CE) from a religious studies’ perspective by examining the use and the role of representation (through images) in the Letter. The topic of representation is important both for the study of religion as well as for the history of iconoclasm and closely connected to the analytical concept of immanence/transcendence. The peculiarities of the use of representation in the Letter demonstrate that some aspects of the broader notion of representation must be adjusted when talking about religious representation. The approach of this article combines an in-depth investigation of the Letter (including an English translation in the appendix) with comparisons to different semantic layers of the modern notion of representation and the use of representation in Greek (pre-)iconoclastic sources from the same period.

Abstract:  The concept of անձնիշխանութիւն (self-governance) in Late Medieval Armenian philosophical thought engages with the questions of what it means to be fully human.  Yovhan Orotnec‘i’s philosophy on the freedom of the human will contextualizes the martyrdom account of T‘amar Mokac‘i found in Grigor Xlatec‘i’s Yaysmawurk‘.  In that account, the characters of T‘amar and P‘ašaxat‘un present a contrast between the exercise of one’s freedom to control the self against the use of freedom and authority to control another. For the author, T‘amar fully exemplifies what it means to be անձնիշխան, possessing the full ability to bridge human rationality and responsibility in her circumstances as displayed in her words, actions, and decisions.  The idea that accumulation of one’s prior free choices and the pattern that emerges from those choices shape one’s character and provide direction for future actions is observed in T‘amar’s courage and in P‘ašaxat‘un’s judgement.

Ayvazyan A.M. The impact of medieval Armenian national-liberation eschatology on the psychology of the masses and military-political projects of the 16–18th centuries. Uchenye Zapiski Kazanskogo Universiteta. Seriya Gumanitarnye Nauki, 2018, vol. 160, no. 3, pp. 735–748. (In Russian)

ABSTRACT

In the 10–18th centuries, a number of popular prophecies, visions, and legends in Armenian written sources were united by the theme of the liberation of Armenia from Muslim rule with the military help of the great Christian powers. In Armenian historiography, these narratives received the cumulative name of the “liberation legend”.
After the destruction of the last Armenian kingdom in Cilicia (1375) and the final decline of the major Armenian principalities in the territory of Armenia (during the late 15th century), the liberation legend’s impact on the psychology of the masses increased. The process of frustration in their own forces was directly proportional to the uncritically growing faith in the Christian powers’ imminent military intervention for the liberation of Armenia. It seems that the national belief in the tenets of the legend was a kind of adaptive mechanism for the ethno-psychological self-defense and survival of the Armenian people.
The military-political projects for the liberation of Armenia drafted in the 16–18th centuries, were invariably taking into account both rational (military-strategic) and irrational (ethnopsychological) factors, including the widespread expectations from the liberation legend’s narrative
motifs. In the 1720s, however, the legend completely failed to hold out against the historical reality and disappeared forever from the political agenda of the Armenian leadership.
KEYWORDS: Armenian liberation legend, visions, prophecies, collective psychology, ethnopsychological self-defense, foreign military aid, Christian powers, geopolitical conjuncture, military-political projects, strategic ally, secret negotiations


Айвазян А.М. Воздействие средневековой армянской национально-освободительной эсхатологии на психологию масс и военно-политические проекты XVI – XVIII вв. // Учен. зап. Казан. ун-та. Сер. Гуманит. науки. – 2018. – Т. 160, кн. 3. – С. 735–748.

АННОТАЦИЯ
В X – XVIII вв. в армянских письменных источниках фигурирует ряд пророчеств, видений и легенд, которые объединяет тема освобождения Армении от мусульманского владычества с военной помощью великих христианских держав. В армянской историографии эти нарративы получили совокупное название «освободительная легенда».

В статье отмечается, что после уничтожения последнего армянского царства в Киликии (1375 г.) и окончательного упадка крупных армянских княжеств на территории собственно Армении (конец XV в.) влияние освободительной легенды на психологию масс усилилось. Процесс разочарования в собственных силах был прямо пропорционален некритически возраставшей вере в военное вмешательство христианских государств в дело освобождения Армении. Коллективная вера в постулаты легенды, по мнению автора, была своеобразным адаптивным механизмом этнопсихологической самозащиты и выживания армянского народа.

Указывается, что в XVI – XVIII вв. армянское руководство при составлении военнополитических проектов по освобождению страны стремилось учитывать как рациональные – военно-стратегические, так и иррациональные – этнопсихологические – факторы и в первую очередь освободительную легенду. Между тем в 1720-х годах легенда, не выдержав очной ставки с исторической действительностью, навсегда исчезла с политической повестки дня армянского освободительного движения.

КЛЮЧЕВЫЕ СЛОВА: армянская освободительная легенда, видения, пророчества, коллективная психология, этнопсихологическая самозащита, иностранная военная помощь, христианские державы, геополитическая конъюнктура, военно-политические проекты, стратегический союзник, тайные переговоры.

The Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople had authority över ali Armenian churches in Bulgaria during the Ottoman era and even in the times of the Principality of Bulgaria established after the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878 as a vassal nation. However, since then, the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople lost influence över those churches as Armenian nationalism gained pace, and Armenian committees became more powerful and active in Bulgaria. The Armenian committees in Bulgaria did not recognize the bishops appointed by the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople because they believed that it was being manipulated by the Ottoman State. The Patriarchate gradually lost its influence as Western States supported the Catholicosate of Etcmiadzin. In 1927, the Armenian churches in Bulgaria came, as a separate diocese, under the authority of the Catholicos of Etcmiadzin, the largest Ecumenical çenter for Armenians.
Keywords: Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople, Bulgaria, Catholicos of Etcmiadzin, Armenian Churches in Bulgaria, Ottoman State.

O curso objetiva reconstituir de maneira analítica as diversas relações de contato cultural e conflito estabelecido entre os diferentes grupos de cristãos da segunda metade do primeiro milênio da era cristã e o islamismo nascente, com vistas a contribuir para um redimensionamento da história das relações entre cristãos e muçulmanos, presa relativamente fácil das distorções e dos estereótipos politicamente orientados.

Ինչո՞ւ անհնարին եղած է ունենալ պատմութեան՝ վերջնական համարուող շարադրանք մը, որ բոլոր ժամանակներու համար ընդունելի ըլլայ։ Ինչո՞ւ յաճախ կը փոխուին պատմագիտական մեկնաբանութիւններն ու արժեւորումները։ Որո՞նք են այն տարբեր ազդակները, որոնցմէ կախեալ են պատմաբանին յանգելիք եզրակացութիւնները։ Զանոնք պիտի փորձենք ներկայացնել ու բացատրել հայոց հին, միջնադարեան ու նոր պատմութենէն օրինակներով՝ անգամ մը եւս հաւաստելու համար, որ «պատմութիւնը անվերջ բանավէճ մըն է»։