[7] According to Von Haxthausen (journey in 1843) the synod took the place of the general council of the Church, which it was impossible to assemble. He adds that in 1783 the Patriarch Lukas decreed that it should not consist of fewer than seven members; in 1802 there were nine members (Transcaucasia, English edition, p. 305). [↑]
[8] Captain Richard Wilbraham, Travels, etc., London, 1839, p. 98. At the time of his visit in 1837 the procurator was actually an Armenian, but quite Russianised. [↑]
[9] Transcaucasia, German edition, Leipzig, 1856, vol. i. pp. 256 seq.; English edition, pp. 284 seq. Von Haxthausen speaks of the “Grobheit des Procurators.” It is only just to add that the katholikos was absent during his visit. [↑]
[10] I was shown the documents in the library. The method of the election of the Katholikos Makar affords great sport to the Jesuit Vernier. He hails with delight the constitution of Edgmiatsin into a state prison “où l’élu de la nation demeure sous la garde d’un gêolier Moscovite. Cet élu a fini par déplaire au despote couronné de St. Pétersbourg; le czar vient de rejeter avec mépris l’œcuménique qui avait réuni la majorité des suffrages, et de lui substituer arbitrairement un Russe qui n’a d’Arménien que le nom. Dans quelques années de par le knout, ce nom même disparaîtra, et quelque pape cosaque remplacera l’Arménien russifié et occupera à Edgmiatsin le trône de saint Grégoire. Terrible et juste vengeance de Dieu....” The italics are mine (Histoire du Patriarcat Arménien Catholique, Paris, 1891, p. 285). [↑]
[11] Sophocles, Œdipus Tyrannus, 1. 58. [↑]
[12] The new catalogue, which has not yet been printed [September 1900], will contain some 3500 titles. So far as I have been able to ascertain, there already exist two catalogues—(1) that published by the Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, 1840, and (2) that by Caréniantz, Tiflis, 1863, 4o [in Armenian]. [↑]
[13] For a description of this book and its ivory panels see Strgygowski, Das Etschmiadzin-Evangeliar, Vienna, 1891. [↑]
[14] The institution of the twelve bishops, who reside in the palace of the katholikos and fulfil various offices about his person, dates from the commencement of the Armenian State Church. See Faustus of Byzantium, vi. 5, and Gelzer (Die Anfänge der Armenischen Kirche, in Berichte der K. S. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Leipzic, Phil.-Hist. Classe, 1895). [↑]
[15] I was informed that the notes are those of the fifth century; but there appears to be no sufficient historical evidence for this belief. The historians, however, speak of this or that vartapet as having been a musician (erajisht). The Katholikos George IV. (d. 1882) transcribed the original notes from the Armenian manuscripts, but brought them into consonance with European methods. [↑]
[16] So it is known to all the early travellers. Cp. Poser, 1621; Evliya, 1647, “the Three Churches, a great convent built by the Greek emperors”; Rhodes, 1648–49; Tavernier, 1655; Chardin, 1673; Jesuit Missionaries, seventeenth century, Letter of Père Monier; Schillinger, c. 1699; Tournefort, 1701, who notices the inappropriateness of the name. [↑]