the Patriarchs did not remain at Etshmiadzin. From the 5th to the 7th centuries they are with the kings[1] at Duin or Tovin, not far off (south-east of Erivan). A number of synods were held here. In the 8th century Ani (south of Kars) became the civil and ecclesiastical centre of Armenia. But the Patriarch still wandered about, generally with the king or prince, according to the fortune of war. In the 11th century Cilician Armenia appears with its king and Patriarch at Sis (pp. 389, 415). From the 15th century till now Etshmiadzin has again been the usual residence of the Katholikos (pp. 417, 427).
At what moment shall we say that the Armenian Church went into schism? Her breach with Cæsarea was a violation of Church law, in itself a schismatical act. But it did not necessarily lead at once to schism. Schism is a breach of communion with the one Church of Christ. If, then, Cæsarea, in spite of the injury done to her, remained in communion with the Armenians, these must not yet be counted a schismatical sect.[2] It seems that till Armenia turned Monophysite this is what happened. The Metropolitan of Cæsarea had the right to excommunicate his rebellious children, but I do not find that he did so. He seems to have tolerated what he could not prevent, to have suffered the Armenians to ordain their own Primate without further protest, after that of St. Basil (p. 407). So we have at first autonomy[3] without schism. Cæsarea by an act of undeserved grace allowed her communion to Armenia, and the rest of Christendom did not interfere between the mother and the disobedient daughter.
- ↑ The Bagratuni line of kings under the Khalif.
- ↑ Since Cæsarea was, of course, in communion with Rome and the Catholic Church throughout the world.
- ↑ Autonomy in the only possible Catholic sense, namely, independence of Patriarchal authority. A Catholic autonomous local Church remains, of course, always subject to the supreme authority of the Church of Christ herself, and to his Vicar at Rome. It can no more be independent of that than it can be independent of Christ. A parallel case of autonomy without schism is that of Cyprus after the Council of Ephesus (Orth. Eastern Church, 47-48).
ciate that the story of an earlier apostolic foundation makes the legend of our Lord's commission to St. Gregory superfluous. Nor had they ever quite the courage to urge St. Gregory's story to its natural conclusion. One would expect him to be ordained by Christ himself at Etshmiadzin; but in all accounts he goes afterwards to Cæsarea to be ordained by Leontius.
