repetition, in such wise that a sinner could be restored to grace not once only, but as often as the clergy chose to accept his repentance and confession. Thus the whole development of the penitentiary system is traceable in the MSS.
The confession of a dying man might be taken by any layman present, and written down in order to be shown to the priest when he arrived. It then was the duty of the latter to supplicate for his forgiveness, and administer to him the Eucharist.
The clergy of all grades were originally married. The parish priests, or white clergy, are so still, except some of the Latinizing ones. But since the 12th century, or even earlier, the higher clergy, i.e. patriarchs and bishops, have taken monkish vows and worn the cowl.
There were abortive attempts to unite the Armenian church with the Byzantine in the 9th century under the patriarch Photius, and again late in the 12th under the emperor Manuel Comnenus, when a joint council met at Romkla, near Tarsus, but ended in nothing (A.D. 1179). Neither could the Armenians keep on good terms even with the Syriac monophysites. From the age of the crusades on, the Armenians of Cilicia, whose patriarch sat at Sis, improved their acquaintance with Rome; and more than one of their patriarchs adopted the Roman faith, at least in words. Dominican missions went to Armenia, and in 1328 under their auspices was formed a regular order called the United Brethren, the forerunners of the Uniats of the present day, who have convents at Venice and Vienna, a college in Rome and a numerous following in Turkey. They retain their Armenian liturgies and rites, pruned to suit the Vatican standards of orthodoxy, and they recognize the pope as head of the church.
The patriarchs of Great Armenia first resided at Ashtishat, on the Araxes. From 478 to 931 they occupied Dvin in the same neighbourhood, then Aghthamar, an island in the Lake of Van, 931–967, the city of Ani, 992–1054, where are still visible the magnificent ruins of their churches and palaces. Since 1441 the chief catholicus has sat at Echmiadzin, the convent of Valarshapat, now part of Russian Armenia. A rival catholicus, with a small following, still has his cathedral and see at Sis. The catholicus of Valarshapat is nominally chosen by all Armenians. A synod of bishops, monks and doctors meets regularly to transact under his eye the business of the convent and the oecumenical affairs of the church; but its decisions are subject to the veto of a Russian procurator. There are Armenian patriarchs, subject to the spiritual jurisdiction of Echmiadzin, in Constantinople and Jerusalem. In the latter place the Armenians occupy a convent on Mount Sion, and keep up in the churches of the Sepulchre and of Bethlehem their own distinct rites and feasts, the only ones there which at all resemble those of the 4th century.
The following list of councils was compiled by John, catholicus about the year 728, and read at the council of Manazkert, when the dogmatic and disciplinary attitude of the Armenian church was defined once and for all:—
1. In twentieth year of catholicate of Gregory and thirty-seventh of Trdat, the king, on return of Aristaces from council of Nice, bringing the Nicene creed and canons.
2. Council held by St Nerses on his return from the council of the 150 fathers at Constantinople against Macedonius.
3. Held by St Sahak and Mesrop on receipt of letters from Proclus and Cyril after the council of Ephesus, when the “Glory in the Highest” was adopted. Held against Nestorianism.
4. Held by Joseph, disciple of Mashdotz (Mesrop) and St Sahak, in Shahapiwan in the sixth year of King Yazkert (i.e. Yazdegerd) of Persia, for the regulation of the church. Forty bishops present. (The Massalians were anathematized.)
5. Held by Babken, catholicus, in the City-plain (i.e. Dvin), in the 18th year of King Kavat (i.e. Kavadh), against the heresy of Acacius and Barsuma (Bar-sauma), the friends of Nestorius. The true (Nicene) faith was sent to the Armenians of the farther East (shortly afterwards a slightly different creed was adopted, identical with a pseudo-Athanasian symbol used by Evagrius of Pontus and given in Greek in Patr. Gr. xxvi. Col. 1232).
6. At the beginning of the Armenian era, held by Nerses in Dvin, in the fourth year of his catholicate, in the fourteenth of Chosroes’ reign and in the fourteenth of Justinian Caesar. Held against Chalcedon, uniting the Baptism and Christmas feasts on the 6th of January (Epiphany), declaring for mono-physitism, and adopting in the Trisagion the words “who wast crucified for us.” This settlement lasted for about seventy-four years.
7. After the retaking of Jerusalem and recovery of the Cross from the Persians in the eighteenth year of his reign, Heraclius called a mixed council at Karin (Theodosiopolis) of Greeks and Armenians under Ezr (Esdras), catholicus, at which the preceding council of Dvin was cursed, its reforms repudiated and the confession of Chalcedon adopted. This remained the official attitude of the Armenian church until the catholicate of Elias (703–717). John, catholicus, denies to Ezr’s meeting the name of council, and so makes his own the seventh.
8. Under John, catholicus, in Manazkert, in the one hundred and seventieth year of the Armenian era (= A.D. 728) under the presidency of Gregory Asharuni Chorepiscopos (Gregory Asheruni). All the Armenian bishops attended, as also the metropolitan of Urhha (Edessa), Jacobite bishops of Gartman, of Nfrkert, Amasia, by command of the archbishop of Antioch. Chalcedon was repudiated afresh, union with the Jacobites instituted, use of water and leaven in the Eucharist condemned, the five days’ preliminary fast before Lent restored, Saturday as well as Sunday made a day of feasting and synaxis, any but the orthodox excluded from the Maundy Thursday Communion, the first communion of the new catechumens; union of the Baptismal and Christmas feasts was restored, and the faithful forbidden to fast on Fridays from Easter until Pentecost. In general these rules have been observed in the Armenian church ever since.
For list of authorities on the Armenian church see the works enumerated at the end of Armenian Language and Literature. For the relations of the Armenian church to the Persian kings see Persia: Ancient History, section viii. §§ 2 and 3. (F. C. C.)
ARMENIAN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE. The Armenian language belongs to the group called Indo-European, of which the Iranic and Indic tongues formed one branch, and Greek, Albanian, Italian, Celtic, Germanic and Baltic-Slavonic dialects the other great branch. Unlike most of these, Armenian lost its genders Language.long before the year A.D. 400, when the existing literature begins. Modern Persian similarly has lost gender; and in both cases the liberation must have been due to attrition of other tongues which had a different system of gender or none at all. So the Armenians were ever in contact on the north with the Iberians of the Caucasus who had none, and with the Semitic races on the south and east which had other ways of forming genders than the Indo-European tongues.
From the original Armenian stock can be readily distinguished a mass of Old and Middle Persian loan-words. These are so numerous that for a time Armenian was classed as an Iranian tongue. For more than a thousand years, say until A.D. 640, Armenia was an appanage of the realm of the Persians and Parthians. Until A.D. 428 the Armenian throne was occupied by a younger branch of the Arsacid dynasty that ruled in Persia until the advent of the Sassanids (c. A.D. 226), and the internal polity and court administration of Armenia were modelled on the Persian or Parthian. Accordingly over 200 proper and personal names in Armenia were Old Persian, as well as 700 names of things. If we count in the derivative forms of these words we get at least 2000 Old Persian words. Often the same Persian word was borrowed twice over in an earlier and later form at an interval of centuries, just as in English we inherit a word direct or have taken it from Latin, and have also assimilated from French a later form of the same. The Persian influence in Armenian was already strong as early as 400 B.C., when Xenophon used a Persian interpreter to converse. In some of the Armenian villages they answered him in Persian. The Persian loan-words already present in Armenian as early as A.D. 400 mirror the earlier political and social life of Armenia. Thus many of their kings and nobles had Persian names; Persian also were most
