The holy priest doth raise you up.
Disease and pain through you will cease,
By you all sinners find release.
To town and village you are borne,
To convent, wilderness forlorn;
Where men do not your sparkle see,
No mass nor service can there be.”
The seventeenth century resembles its predecessor as regards the political position of Armenia, except that the misery is even greater.
During the last years of the eighteenth century, the Russian conquest of Armenia began.
At the end of the eighteenth century an Armenian monk named Mkhitar Sepastatzi established at St. Lazare in Venice an Armenian Brotherhood, who devoted themselves to literature. This Brotherhood is still in existence, and has a branch in Vienna. During this period of more than a century its members have printed hundreds of old MSS. of historical value. They have also produced many works dealing with history and other branches of learning, and translations of foreign classics, thus rendering a great service to Armenian literature.