The cathedral of Etchmiatzin built by Gregory still stands to-day; it has constantly been repaired and rebuilt in some part or other, until perhaps little of the original building may be left, but it still claims to be the church built by the patron saint of Armenia. I shall here quote a passage from “Historical Sketch of the Armenian Church,” written by an Armenian priest:
“Owing to political circumstances the Armenian Patriarchate had at times to be transferred to metropolises and to other principal towns of Armenia. In the year A.D. 452 it was removed to Dwin, in 993 to Ani, in 1114 to Rômklah, and in 1294 to Sis. The Kingdom of Cilicia becoming extinct, and, we having no more a kingdom and no longer a capital town, it was natural and proper to re-transfer the See to its own original place, as the entire nation unanimously desired it. Accordingly, in the year 1441, it was decided by an ecclesiastical meeting that the seat of the Catholicus should return to Holy Etchmiatzin, where to this day has been preserved the proper unbroken succession from our Apostles and from our holy Father, St. Gregory the Illuminator.”
I read the other day in one of the foreign papers published in Japan, the following piece of news:
“An Armenian Church pronounced by experts to date from the second century of the Christian era, has been discovered in a fair state of preservation in the neighbourhood of Bash-Aparnah.”
Perhaps the excavations in Armenia which Professor Marr is now conducting might lead to throwing more light on Armenian history.
FOOTNOTES
[1] In a recent publication “Fifty Years in Constantinople,” the author Dr. George Washburn, ex-President of Robert College, estimates the number that were slaughtered in cold blood in the streets of the city as 10,000. Dr. Washburn adds the following: “The massacre of the Armenians came to an end on Friday, the day after the soldiers came to the College; but the persecution of them which went on for months was worse than the massacre. Their business was destroyed, they were plundered and blackmailed without mercy, they were hunted like wild beasts, they were imprisoned, tortured, killed, deported, fled the country, until the Armenian population of the city was reduced by some seventy-five thousand, mostly men, including those massacred.”
[2] “Transcaucasia and Ararat: Twenty Years of the Armenian Question.”—James Bryce.
[3] “Our Responsibilities For Turkey.”—Argyll (note to 2nd printing).