[121] I am indebted to Mr. F. C. Conybeare for the following note to this passage:—The Armenian alphabet was imposed on Sahak (Isaac the Great) by the Persian Government as a political device to estrange the Armenians both from Greeks and from Syrians. The only historical account is that of Anania of Shirak (unedited chronicle in an uncial MS. at Mush), who relates that the twenty-nine consonants were “arranged in order” by Daniel, a Syrian philosopher, and sent (during the reign of Theodosius the Less) to the Armenian Satrap Vakortsh by Viram Shapu the king by hand of the Elder Abel. The seven vowels were still wanted, and Mesrop received these from Hayek, a noble of Taron. Stephanus, a scribe of Samosata, incorporated these seven vowels among the consonants. [↑]
[122] Nor at the Councils of Constantinople and of Ephesus. [↑]
[123] It appears that this formula was added to the Trisagion by the Synod of Vagharshapat (Ter-Mikelean, Die armenische Kirche, etc., p. 47). [↑]
[124] The subject is fully discussed by Ter-Mikelean (op. cit. pp. 52 seq., and cp. pp. 70 and 89). [↑]
[125] My reader may consider that I have been dealing too largely in ancient history. My excuse is that the position remains much the same at the present day. The differences between the Armenian and the Greek Churches are well summarised in a note by the Mekhitarists to the famous address delivered by Nerses of Lambron in the twelfth century to the council assembled at Romkla (Orazione sinodale di S. Nierses Lampronense, Venice, 1812, p. 188). The Greek Church demanded that the Armenian Church should:—1. Anathematise all those who assert that Christ has one nature. 2. Confess Jesus Christ in two natures. 3. Not address the Trisagion to the Second Person of the Trinity. 4. Celebrate the Dominical feasts in conformity with the Greek Church. 5. Prepare the Chrism or Holy Oil with oil alone. 6. Celebrate the Holy Communion with leavened bread and with water in the wine. 8. Receive the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh Œcumenical Councils. 9. Receive the nomination of the Armenian patriarch from the Greek Emperor. The attitude of the two Churches towards one another is regretfully but most pithily summed up by the same Nerses of Lambron. The Greeks thanked God that they were not like the Armenians; and the Armenians thanked God that they were not like the Greeks.
It has been generally supposed that the Armenians subscribed the Councils of Constantinople and Ephesus; but I must repeat that this does not appear to have actually been the case (see Ter-Mikelean, op. cit.).
Apart from dogma and ritual, the traveller notices a conspicuous difference between the Greek and the Armenian Church at the present day. You will not find eikons in Armenian houses, while no Russian house is without them. As regards the Church of Rome, the dogmatic breach is even wider than with the Greek Church; in common with the latter the Armenian Church rejects the Filioque. And of course it denies the infallibility of the Pope. [↑]