AN ARMENIAN TOMBSTONE OF A.D. 934.
Evidence of a high state of art.

After the fall of the Sassanidæ, in the seventh century, Armenia was divided between the Greek Empire and the Saracens; but from 859 to 1045 it was again ruled by a native dynasty of vigorous princes, the Pagratidæ. This was brought to a close by the suspicious and short-sighted policy of the Byzantine emperors, one of whom, Constantine IX., at last overthrew the Armenian kingdom, thereby laying open the whole eastern frontier to the invasion of the Seljouk Turks, who shortly before had begun their attacks, and who might have been successfully resisted by these hardy mountaineers. The result was fatal, both to Armenia, which was overrun, and to the Greek Empire; for by the battle of Manzikert, 1071 A. D., when Romanus IV. was defeated and made prisoner by Alp Arslan, the whole of Asia Minor was left at the mercy of the Seljouks.[[67]]

Rupen, a relative of the last Pagratid sovereign, escaped into Cilicia, and established the Rupenian dynasty, which was not extinguished until the death of Leon VI., 1393, an exile in Paris, and the last of the Armenian kings. The Rupenians had entered into alliance with the Crusaders. They welcomed the Mongolian hordes under Genghis Khan, early in the thirteenth century, and suffered the vengeance of the Mamelukes, 1375.

A graphic account of the cruelties of Timour the Tartar, who devastated Armenia at the close of the fourteenth century, has been left us by Thomas of Medzop. The last great calamity which fell upon the mother country happened in 1605, when Shah Abbas forcibly transplanted twelve thousand families to Ispahan in Persia.

The Armenian Church.—It is the oldest of all national churches. Their legends claim that our Lord corresponded with King Abgarus of Edessa or Ur, and that the apostles Thaddæus and Bartholomew preached the Gospel to them. But the historical founder of the Armenian church was St. Gregory “The Illuminator,”[[68]] an Arsacid prince, related to King Tiridates (Dertad), who was consecrated Bishop of Armenia, at Cæsarea, in 302 A. D. The Armenian church is Episcopal in polity, and closely resembles the Greek in outward forms.

Misled by imperfect reports of the Council of Chalcedon, 451, which they were not able to attend on account of Persian persecutions, the Armenian bishops annulled its decrees in 536, thus gaining the credit of being Eutychians, which led to their gradual separation from the orthodox church, much to the satisfaction of the Persian ruler Chosroes. This estrangement was doubtless political as much as doctrinal, on account of the attempts at ecclesiastical supremacy by the churches of Constantinople and Rome. As far as her ecclesiastical writers are concerned, and her beautiful liturgy, the Armenian church is in general orthodox. Her heresy, in common with that of the rest of Christendom, is one of life rather than of doctrine. A schism in the Armenian church was brought about in the sixteenth century by Jesuit missionaries, who succeeded in detaching the community of Catholic Armenians from the mother church, of which the Catholicos at Etchmiadzin is recognized as the supreme head.

All Armenians—except perhaps the Catholic, whose allegiance has been transferred of course to Rome—still cherish a passionate attachment for the venerable church of their ancestors, to which they owe their identity as a people after the terrible vicissitudes of so many centuries. It is true that Armenians who have come under European influence, especially French, have to some extent become sceptical and indifferent to religion. But even such men still profess at least an outward loyalty, as a matter of sentiment, and because they believe the formal preservation of the Armenian church to be the condition of national union in the future as it has been in the past. It is, indeed, almost a political necessity, as the Ottoman Empire is now constituted.

It is to be hoped that the time will come when the children of the Armenian church of every shade will no longer look upon her as a mother frail and failing, yet to be treated with respect while she lasts; nor as a mother ignorant and bigoted beyond hope of reform; still less, as one heretical and to be abandoned for Rome. Rather, let all her sons rally around her and help her to fulfil her true spiritual mission. She will then renew her youth and again take her honored place in the front ranks of “the Church of the living God, which is the pillar and ground of the truth.”

Would that the spirit of the grand and broadminded man who is now the Catholicos at Etchmiadzin, His Holiness, Mugerditch Khrimian, might pervade the whole body of which he is the honored and beloved head. Less than a year ago, the author had the privilege of a long private interview with this venerable ecclesiastic, whose hand he kissed in oriental fashion, with respect for the man and for himself. His last words to me, found upon the title-page, were “Husahadelu chenk,” meaning, “We must not despair”—a good motto for us all.