the reforms that he had forced upon her, the Armenian Church to the north was also taking one of the important steps in her history. The bishops gathered in council at Dvin,[1] and there formally repudiated the council of Chalcedon, an act which they have never since really withdrawn. They were led to this step by a rather curious coincidence, through the influence of another Bar-soma; that Barsumas (to give him the name by which we know him) who won an unhappy notoriety at the "Latrocinium," and who was afterwards a vigorous preacher of Monophysitism in Asia. His disciple, Samuel,[2] had been sent by him to Armenia.
Of course, this act did not for the moment separate them from the Church of Constantinople, which then professed the Henoticon. That effect came to pass thirty years later, when Chalcedon was acknowledged once more, and Armenia clung obstinately to her national confession. Formal reconciliation has been affected more than once, but it has always been unreal, and this Church has always continued in separation on that point, and has professed some sort of Monophysitism.[3] Thus (a fact which must have been very gratifying to all Persian statesmen) the two Christian melets in their dominions were separated, not only from the Christians of the Roman Empire, but also from one another.
- ↑ Otherwise Vagarshapat. It is the place now generally called Etchmiadzin, which was originally only the name of the great monastery.
- ↑ Ass., ii. 266.
- ↑ The question of Armenian "heresy" does not concern us. We may mention, however, that so severe a judge as J. M. Neale considers them to be "orthodox in intention"; and that they have introduced into their version of the Creed clauses emphasizing the reality and eternity of the Human nature of Christ, and therefore can hardly be "Monophysite" in the ordinary sense.
