ARMENIAN APOSTOLIC CHURCH

the Orthodox national church of Armenia. Its claim to the title Apostolic is based on the belief that Armenia was evangelized by the Apostles Bartholomew and Thaddaeus. Christianity became the state religion of Armenia about AD 300, when St. Gregory the Illuminator converted the Arsacid king Tiridates III. The new Armenian church soon struck a course independent of the founding church at Caesarea Cappadociae (now Kayseri, Turkey), though it developed in close relationship with the Syrians, who provided it with scriptures and liturgy and much of its basic institutional terminology. Its dependence on the Syriac alphabet was ended in the 5th century, when Mesrop Mashtots invented an Armenian alphabet and carried out numerous translations of the Scriptures into Armenian. In 506 at the Council of Dvin, the Armenian church rejected the ruling of the Council of Chalcedon (451) that the one Person of Christ consists of two natures; the Armenian church thus became (and remained) Monophysite (a view holding that Christ had only one nature). When the Georgian church broke away from the Armenians and reunited with the Greek Orthodox Church in the early 7th century, the Armenians remained in communion with the Coptic and Syrian Jacobite churches, confessing the Christological formula of St. Cyril of Alexandria, one incarnate nature of the Word. Gregory the Illuminator and his early successors had their residence at Ejmiadzin. It was moved to Dvin from 485 to 927, then was located variously until 1293, when the catholicate (highest ecclesiastical administrative office) was transferred to the Cilician capital, Sis (now Kozan, Turkey), where it remained after the fall of Cilicia to the Muslim Mamluks of Egypt. In the 15th century Gregory IX Musabegian rejected efforts to transfer the see to East Armenia in order to withdraw it from Roman influence. A synod of 17 bishops deposed him, and the monk Kirakos was elected catholicos at Ejmiadzin in 1441, initiating a long line of prelates bearing the title Catholicos of All Armenians. Owing to this history of inner dissension, the organization of the Armenian Apostolic Church is complex. There are two catholicoses: the supreme catholicos of all Armenians, residing at Ejmiadzin, and the catholicos of Sis, now residing at Antilyas, Lebanon; and two patriarchs, of Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey) and Jerusalem. The catholicos at Ejmiadzin is generally recognized as head of the whole church, the catholicos at Sis owing him spiritual allegiance, though retaining administrative autonomy. Relationships between the catholicates have on occasion been strained by political tensions. Whereas the supreme catholicos resides in Armenia, Armenian nationalists (Dashnaks) tend to support the see of Antilyas. This division is reflected among North American Armenians. The two Armenian patriarchates of Constantinople and Jerusalem are of relatively recent origin and recognize the supremacy of Ejmiadzin. The patriarchate of Jerusalem was founded early in the 14th century when the monastery of St. James in Jerusalem proclaimed its bishop Sargis an independent patriarch. The patriarchate of Constantinople was created in 1461 by the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II, who appointed a local bishop to be the religious leader of the entire Armenian community in the Ottoman Empire. Because the territory involved included the majority of Armenians, the patriarch of Constantinople, while owing spiritual allegiance to Ejmiadzin, was effectively the most powerful prelate in the Armenian church until the end of the Ottoman Empire after World War I. The Armenian Apostolic Church generally shares the doctrinal beliefs of the Eastern Orthodox church, except on the Monophysite question, and retains traditional Armenian rites. It is seen by many as the custodian of Armenian national identity.