St. Gregory The Illuminator
Christianity in Armenia as in other parts of the ancient world was
practiced in secrecy until the year 301 A. D. when St.Gregory the Illuminator or
Enlightener who himself was of high birth and royal blood converted to Christianity and
took upon himself the hard task of converting king Trdat (Tiridates) III the Great and his
court. St. Gregory knew that it was necessary to convert the king and upper classes in
order to successfully install Christianity as a state religion. At first king Trdat III
opposed the religion as his predaceousour and even threw St. Gregory in a deep pit (Khor
Virap in Armenian) near Holy Mount Ararat. But soon after king Trdat realized that
Christianity can be a uniting force and a great shield against the pagan Persia and its
assimilationistic policy and the Zoroasterism which the Persians were trying to instate in
Armenia in order to gain influence amongst the people of Armenia. St. Gregory the
Illuminator himself became the first patriarch Catholicos of Armenia's Holy Apostolic
Church and began the construction of the Great Mother Church and Catholicos seat of St.
Echmiatsin which in Armenian means the site of Jesus's appearance or landing. As tradition
tells the spot where to begin the construction of mother church was pointed out by Jesus
Christ were he himself came down upon from the heaven. Throughout the centuries Armenia's
Holy Apostolic Church took upon itself the task of preaching the word of God to its nearby
neighbors. Peoples of Caucasian Albania and Iberia (Georgia) were converted to
Christianity and other tribes of Caucasus and beyond were also converted.
St. Gregory the Illuminator is one of the most significant and prominent
individuals in all of the Armenian history. His strong devotion and dedication to the
Christian faith, his unbreakable will and continuos, tenacious and religious persuasion in
the ultimate goal of making all of the Armenian nation Christian, earned him not only
canonization of the Armenian Holy Apostolic Church, but also made him a holy and divine
being in the eyes of all of the Armenian people alike. The Armenian nation, not only
remembered his remarkable deeds and accomplishments, but showed a deep gratitude and
respect to St. Gregory, who was directly responsible in the forging and preservation of
not only the Armenian Christendom, but as well as the preservation and conservation of the
Armenian nation and culture as a whole. History showed us, that had it not been for the
Christian faith and the Armenian Christian devoutness and affinity, particularly in that
of the preservation of national identity with direct identification of Christianity, the
Armenian fate might have been similar to that of the neighboring nations and peoples, who
having accepted and adopted the religious ideals and faith of the conquering nations (be
it Mazdeism, Graeco-Roman paganism or even Islam. A good example of this would be the
numerous tribes and peoples that lived throughout Near East, in Anatolia, Iranian plateau
and Mesopotamia.) very quickly assimilated and faded away from the pages of history as
distinct nations.
St. Gregory was born in the year of 239 AD in the family of Anak of noble
blood and Parthian descent. From the early childhood St. Gregory had to face a life of
hardship and difficult path. His father Anak being charged for assassination of one of the
kings of the Arshakouni line (with the help of Sasanid Persians who had a hostile and
antagonistic stance toward the Arshakounis of Armenia) was put to death and St. Gregory
narrowly escaped and was saved from the hands of the guards with the help of his
caretakers Sophia (Sopia) and Yevtagh. The young St. Gregory was taken to Caesaria, in
Cappadocia, where Sophia and Yevtagh hoped to raise and educate him in the proper fashion.
They also hoped that as the time went on, the Arshakouni rulers would forget the treachery
of the clan of St. Gregory. St. Gregory was given to the Christian Holy Father
Phirmilianos, for the proper Christian upbringing and education. St. Gregory was brought
up as a devout Christian. St. Gregory from a young age on decided to dedicate his life to
the preaching of the word of God, the conversion of the Armenian nation and the
establishment of the first Christian nation became his ultimate objective in life. He also
in a way wanted to "cleanse" himself and the name of his noble family in the
face of the Arshakounis, especially in that of the king of Armenia, Trdat (Tiridates) III.
Having reached adulthood St. Gregory married Mariam (Mary), the daughter
of Davit, one the noblemen of Armenia Minor. Mariam was a devout and consigned Christian.
St. Gregory and Mariam had two sons; the eldest being Vrtanes followed by Aristakes.
Mariam with her youngest son Aristakes retreated to a convent monastery. Vrtanes was
placed under a safe guardianship and upbringing of close friends of the family, by the
directions of St. Gregory, who was finally free to begin his holy mission and task in
Armenia. In 287 AD, St. Gregory departed from Cappadocia to Greater Armenia. St. Gregory
on his way to the prominent capital of Greater Armenia, Vagharshapat (St. Echmiatsin)
preached the word of God and many new converts joined the Christian faith (Christian
communities in Armenia had already been established more then 200 years earlier by the
holy preaching of two of Jesus' apostles St. Thaddeus and St. Bartholomew, until the year
301 AD they prayed and worshiped God in secrecy). The fact that there was a strong
Christian presence in Armenia greatly contributed to the success of winning of Christian
faith over paganism. St. Gregory hoped that the fact that nearly half a century had passed
since the time of assassination of Trdat's father, would help him to convince and convert
Trdat and the rest of the royal court to the Christian faith. Upon his arrival in
Vagharshapat, St. Gregory was promptly arrested upon the charges of "heresy" by
the royal guards of King Trdat Arshakouni. Trdat imprisoned St. Gregory and placed him
into a dungeon Khor Virap (literary, deep pit). The reasons behind the imprisonment of St.
Gregory were not necessarily because of Trdat's revengefulness and retaliation for St.
Gregory's father, Anak's, assassination, but rather had a deeper motive and meaning behind
it. The Christian faith in the late third century AD was being prosecuted and put down by
the Roman Empire with utmost cruelty and oppression of the Christian followers. The
prosecutions and martyrdom of early Christians in the boundaries of the Roman Empire,
continued well into the Fourth Century. Trdat was a close friend and an ally of the Roman
Emperor, Diocletanius, who convinced Trdat to have a hostile and suppressive policy toward
the Christians of Armenia, with their spiritual leader being St. Gregory. St. Gregory
remained imprisoned for twelve long years in the dark chambers of Khor Virap, yet he never
lost his faith and conviction in God, nor did he revert from his holy task, indoctrinated
and called upon by Lord Himself, as he believed and attained to the conclusion and very
end of his holy mission.
Things quickly began to change in the year 297 AD. Trdat, having seen the
true nature of Diocletanius, who in 297 AD invaded Armenia and conducted and signed a
treacherous treaty (behind Trdat's back) with Sassanid Persia, by which a vast amount of
territory from Western provinces of Greater Armenia, became "protectorates" of
Rome. The traditional history (Pavstos Buzand IV th century Armenian Christian chronicler)
tells that Trdat, sickened by "madness" that turned him into a "wild
beast" in desperation sought the help and protection of St. Gregory and the Christian
God. After his release St. Gregory prays for Trdat's sole to God and begs for God's mercy
and forgiveness. God answers the prayers of the Holy Father and grants sanity back to the
king. The traditional story chronicled by Armenian historian Pavstos Buzand tells us of
the swift change of Trdat from persecutor to protector of Christians and Christendom. In
301 AD St. Gregory the Illuminator officially baptized king Trdat the Great along with the
members of royal court and upper class. Trdat issued a decree by which he granted full
rights to St. Gregory for the beginning of carrying out his holy mission of conversion of
the entire nation to the Christian faith. In 302 AD St. Gregory, accompanied by an escort
of 16 aristocratic nobles, returned to the city of Caesaria, where he was raised in the
true spirit of Christianity and where he contemplated his sacred devoir.
St. Gregory had to face the resistance of the pagan priestly class, who
resisted the spread of Christianity. Although many priests converted and joined the
Christian faith (in the IV th century AD in the monarchal order of Armenia the word of the
king was the law and his orders were unquestionably carried out, although this would
change in the V th century with the rise of the forcible nobility). St. Gregory
establishment new churches in Western Armenia, the ancient Sun worshiping center of
Ashtishat was turned into a new center of Christian faith, the Grande temple of Ashtishat
being turned into a church. In 303 AD St. Gregory began the construction of the Cathedral
of the Mother Church of Armenia's Holy Apostolic Church, on the spot of another pagan
atrushan (eternal fire) temple in the capital city of Vagharshapat (St. Echmiatsin). The
place was chosen after the Holy Vision of St. Gregory the Illuminator, who saw Jesus'
descent from the Heaven to the Holy Spot, hence the name Echmiatsin: Site of Lord's
descent, or the Descent of the Only Begotten Son of Lord. The newly built Cathedral, the
Mother Church, became the new spiritual and as well as cultural center of Christian
Armenia and remained so to this day for nearly one thousand seven hundred years. Most of
the Armenian common folk were baptized in the sacred rivers of Armenia Aratsani (upper
Euphrates) and Yeraskh (Arax). Many of the pre-Christian, traditional Indo-European,
festivals and celebrations such as Tyarndarach (Trndez- associated with fire worship) and
Vardevar (Vadarvar, associated with water worship), that dated back to thousands of years
were preserved and continued in the form of Christian celebrations and chants. St. Gregory
also foresaw and realized a need for a competent successor who could stabilize and
continue the strengthening of Christendom not only in Armenia, but in Caucasus and all of
Anatolia, for Armenia (Trdat) had become a refuge and a defender of the persecuted
Christians from all of the Roman Empire. Aristakes, the youngest son of St. Gregory was
named by St. Gregory as a successor to St. Gregory's newly established holy seat in St.
Echmiatsin.
St. Gregory in the last decades of his lifetime undertook the burdensome
efforts in establishment of new Christian orders and institutions in order to solidify
Christianity in Armenia and the entire region as a whole. New schools and churches were
being establishment throughout Armenia, in the East and the West. St. Gregory also placed
and instructed his grandson Grigoris (son of Aristakes) in charge of the holy missions to
the peoples and tribes of all of the Caucasus, in Iberia (Georgia) and Caucasian Albania.
Grigoris fell as a Christian martyr, killed by a fanatical mob, while preaching amongst
the pagan tribes of Albania. St. Gregory, after seeing the fulfillment and accomplishment
of his divine purpose and holy mission in life, as chronicler Pavstos Buzand writes, given
to him by God Almighty Himself, of seeing Armenia Christian, named his youngest son,
Aristakes the next spiritual leader of Armenia, the next Catholicos in line of Armenia's
Holy Apostolic Church. St. Gregory, at an old age (in his late eighties) withdrew to a
small sanctuary, near Mt. Sepuh, in the Manyats Ayr province. Here he spent the remainder
of his earthly life (until the year 325 AD) with a small convent of monks he entered the
Kingdom of Lord Jesus Savior in Heaven, praying and glorifying God Almighty. It is also
believed that it is in this convent that St. Gregory wrote his "Holy
Scriptures", which are among the best and rarest in their type of early Christian
religious-philosophical thought and belief. St. Gregory is regarded as not only the
establisher of Christianity and Christendom in Armenia, but as well as an important and
essential part of the establishment of Christendom worldwide. By establishing Christianity
in Armenia, which served as a model Christian nation to the rest of the world
(particularly to the Romans, who closely watched the developments in Armenia), and after
seeing the success of Christianity and the positive changes and growth that it brought
about in Armenia, the Romans too followed the example and decades later, they too
proclaimed Christianity as the official state religion, modeled after that of Armenia.
After the acceptance of Christianity by the vast Roman Empire (which comprised a large
part of the ancient world) Christianity was to stay and to become the dominant religion of
the world. In 2001 Armenia will celebrate the 1700 th anniversary of Armenian State
Christendom and the establishing of the first pioneer Christian nation, Armenia.
- Source:
- By Gevork Nazaryan
http://www.armenianhighland.com/stgregory/
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