Synod of Tovin (Duin), apparently in 554,[1] clinched the matter. This is what a collection of Armenian canons says of it: "The Patriarch Nerses summoned at Tovin a synod against the Council of Chalcedon, because the error of two natures in Jesus Christ was making terrible progress. He decreed that we must believe in the unity of the nature of Jesus Christ; he united in one feast Christmas and the Baptism of Jesus Christ[2] as a sign of the uniting of the two natures in one only, without distinction; and he added to the Trisagion these words: 'who wast crucified for us,' in order to protest against the distinction of two natures."[3] So the Armenian national Church took her side definitely against Chalcedon. She has wavered several times. In order to gain protection from the Byzantines, and still more when she was closely allied with the Latin Crusaders (namely, the Cilician kingdom of Armenia, pp. 389, 415), she has at intervals retracted her heresy. But she always came back to it. It was the national faith; she still stands by the Synod of Tovin and rejects Chalcedon. One immediate result shows again plainly her position. Hitherto Armenia had herself two daughter-Churches — Iberia and Caspian Albania.[4] They say that St. Gregory the Illuminator had sent bishops to convert these parts. At any rate, till the fifth century the Churches of Iberia (Georgia) and Albania depended on the Armenian Katholikos, as he had depended on the Metropolitan of Cæsarea. The Iberian Primate was also a Katholikos, for the same reason as his Armenian brother and chief (p. 405). The Armenians dragged Albania into heresy with them. But the Georgian Katholikos, Kyrion, accepted Chalcedon. So Abraham I, the Armenian Primate (607-615), summoned a synod, as usual at his residence Tovin, and
- ↑ There is a difficulty about the dates. Tournebize gives three synods: Valarshapat under Babken in 491, Tovin I under Nerses "about 527 (?)," Tovin II under Moses II in 551; and he explains that the Armenian tradition has confused Tovin I and Tovin II (op. cit. 90-91). Ormanian (28-29) gives Tovin I under Babken in 506, Tovin II under Nerses II in 554.
- ↑ This is an error. The Armenian Church never had a special Christmas (p. 437).
- ↑ Quoted by Tournebize: op. cit. 90-91.
- ↑ This is Albania in the Caucasus, a little land between Georgia and the Caspian Sea, not, of course, the better known Albania in the west of the Balkan Peninsula.
