The ancient monasteries of their own land are of a peculiar construction, remarkable for the diminutive proportions of the churches and the small size of the monastic buildings, as well as their massive strength and the great squared stones of which they are built. They are little fortresses, and seem always to have been very poor, though some are larger and more wealthy, comparatively, than the generality. They have been erected to resist the incursions of the Saracens, Knights Templars, Koords, Turks, and Persians, who, from time to time, overran this abject principality. Their massive strength alone has saved them from being pulled down and utterly destroyed; the time necessary for such an operation could not be spared during the inroad of a chappow, or plundering expedition. Nothing worth stealing remains in the various monasteries which I have visited. A few dirty and imperfect church-books, some faded vestments and poor furniture for the altar, and the cells of three or four peasant-monks, were all the wealth that they displayed. Very few appear to have contained a library—none that I have seen. Their manuscripts were written in former days at Edessa, Etchmiazin (which is a more extensive fabric), Teflis, Ooroomia, Tabriz, and other cities, and not usually in these outposts among the mountains. The little monastery of Kuzzul Vank possesses one ancient manuscript of the Holy Scriptures, written in the year, as far as I can remember, 422, which, if it refers to the Armenian era, would be 974; it is written in uncial letters, on vellum, in a small, thick quarto form.
Ignorance and superstition contend for the mastery among the lower classes of Armenia, whose religion shows that tendency to sink into a kind of idolatry which is common among other branches of the Church of Christ in warmer climates. The following anecdote will explain my meaning in advancing such a charge. One of my servants had a bad toothache; he was a Roman Catholic of Smyrna; he made a vow to present an offering to the shrine of St. George at Smyrna if his toothache was cured by the mediation of that saint, but the pain still continued. A friend of his at Erzeroom advised him to vow a silver mouth to St. George of Erzeroom; “for,” he said, “St. George of Smyrna is a Roman saint, and, of course, he can have no authority here; but our St. George is an Armenian, and he will hear your prayer.” The advice was taken: a silver mouth was vowed to St. George of Erzeroom, and the toothache ceased immediately, the servant firmly believing that he had been cured by this saint, who, he considered, was another person, and not the same as St. George of Smyrna, and that his picture here was more powerful in working miracles than the others. In the same manner, the pictures or images of Our Lady of Loretto, Guadaloupe, or del Pilar are believed to be endowed with peculiar powers, and are, in fact, worshiped for their own merits, and not for what they represent.
A curious episode in the history of Armenia took place in the time of Shah Abbas the Great, who established a colony of the natives of that province at Julfa, a village near Isfahaun. He gave them many privileges and immunities, which a remnant of their descendants enjoy still. The forms and ceremonies of their worship resemble those of the Greek Church, from which they are derived. Their vestments are the same, or nearly so: and here I will remark that the sacred vestures of the Christian Church are the same, with very insignificant modifications, among every denomination of Christians in the world; that they have always been the same, and never were otherwise in any country, from the remotest times when we have any written accounts of them, or any mosaics, sculptures, or pictures to explain their forms. They are no more a Popish invention, or have any thing more to do with the Roman Church, than any other usage which is common to all denominations of Christians. They are, and always have been, of general and universal—that is, of catholic—use; they have never been used for many centuries for ornament or dress by the laity, having been considered as set apart to be used only by priests in the church during the celebration of the worship of Almighty God. These ancient vestures have been worn by the bishops, priests, and deacons of that, in common with the hierarchy of every other Church. In England they have fallen into disuse by neglect; King Charles I. presented some vestments to the Cathedral of Durham long after the Reformation, and they continued in use there almost in the memory of man.
The parish priests of the Armenian religion are, I believe, permitted, if not obliged, to marry, as is the case in the Greek and Russian Churches; but they can not, so long as their wife survives, be promoted to any of the higher orders of the hierarchy. Bishops, archbishops, and patriarchs are elected out of the monastic bodies who take the vows of celibacy; their fasts are long and rigorous, their food simple, and their style of life severe; their time is almost entirely taken up with the services of religion, and, as a general rule, their ignorance is extreme.
In their doctrine of the Holy Trinity, they believe that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone; that Christ descended into hell, from whence he reprieved the souls of sinners till the day of judgment; that the souls of the righteous will not be admitted to the beatific vision till after the resurrection, notwithstanding which they invoke them in their prayers. They make use of pictures in their churches, but not of images; they use confession to the priests, and administer the Eucharist in both kinds.
In baptism they plunge the child three times in water, apply the chrism with consecrated oil prepared only by the Patriarch. They also touch the child’s lips with the Eucharist, which consists of unleavened bread sopped in wine.
The Holy Scriptures contain more books than those of the Western Churches. In the Old Testament, after the Book of Genesis, occurs The Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, the Sons of Jacob; then The History of Joseph and of his wife Asenath; The Book of Jesus the Son of Sirach. After these the order of the scriptural books succeeds as with us. In the New Testament, after St. Paul’s Second Epistle to the Corinthians, we find the Epistle of the Corinthians to St. Paul, which is followed by St. Paul’s Third Epistle to the Corinthians. The remainder of the New Testament is the same as ours.
The Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, and the Book of Jesus the Son of Sirach, are well known; but I am not aware that the Book of Asenath has been printed in any European language. This curious book was translated into Italian, from an ancient Armenian manuscript of the Bible in my possession, by an Armenian friend, and translated from the Italian into English by myself: this I presume to be the only copy of the Book of Asenath in the English language. It is a work of considerable length, and is interesting, not only from the place it holds in the estimation of a numerous body of Christians, but also from the picture it presents of the manners and customs of Egypt, at some remote period when it was written. Several passages in it indicate that it must have been composed when what may be called the classic style of life was still in use. Whether it was included among the number of the sacred books collected by Mesrob I do not know: in that case it would date as far back as the fourth century after Christ, a period prolific in apocryphal books, several of which were forged about that time to support the authority of the various heresiarchs who promulgated their opinions in many countries of the East, and who, being unable to produce texts from the accepted books of the Sacred Scriptures which would prove the truth of their doctrines, invented others more suitable to their own purposes, and written more in accordance with their views.
The Epistle from the Corinthians to St. Paul, and the answer from the great apostle, is of a higher class, and bears much resemblance to his other Epistles. It has been published among Lord Byron’s works. He took a few lessons in Armenian from Father Pasquale Aucher, a monk of the monastery of St. Lazarus, at Venice, a man of extraordinary learning, who speaks most of the European languages, as well as Turkish, Armenian, and other Oriental tongues. He translated these Epistles into English, with the assistance of Lord Byron.
The Roman Catholic branch of the Armenian Church has done much more for literature and civilization than the original body. Few Catholics are found in Armenia itself, excepting at Erzeroom and other cities, where a remnant remain, while at Constantinople a great number of the higher and wealthier Armenians give their adherence to that creed. Their minds are more enlarged, they are less Oriental in their ideas, being usually considered as half Franks by their more Eastern brethren. Their churches bear a great resemblance to those of other Catholics, but they retain their own language in their ritual, with many of the forms and ceremonies of the Oriental Church. The Armenian Patriarch, with his long beard, and crown instead of a mitre, is one of the picturesque figures to whom attention is drawn in the ceremonies of the Holy Week at Rome, where there is a college for the education of priests of their nation. They have another college at Constantinople, and several handsome churches; but the most important establishment of this branch of their religion is that of the convent or monastery on the island of St. Lazarus, near Venice.