religion of the state, the court, and aristocracy. Armenians have a right to their boast that their nation was the first to embrace Christianity officially; it did so a score of years or so before the Roman Empire. But paganism lingered for some time among the people, especially in the remote parts of the country. As late as the time of Vrthanes, the third primate, even at Ashtishat, the Christian centre of Armenia, there was an insurrection of pagan priests and their followers, who tried to kill the bishop.[1] We hear of pagan funeral rites in 378.[2] The pagan priesthood formed a rich and powerful military class; naturally, they opposed the new religion in every way. It was, no doubt, in order to break down this opposition that St. Gregory constantly chose pagan priests, or their sons, to be Christian priests or bishops. We do not know how many suffragans Gregory ordained. The later legendary tradition makes him erect an impossible number of sees, as many as four hundred. But it seems clear that he had suffragans, and left a large, well-organized Church at his death, though it was not yet the religion of all Armenians. Towards the end of his life he ordained his second son, Aristakes, to succeed him, and then retired to a hermitage.[3] There is some mystery as to why the elder son did not succeed first.[4] Aristakes was present at the Council of Nicæa in 325.[5] Against the custom of that time in the Armenian Church, he did not marry and had no son. They had already evolved the idea of a hereditary succession in the Illuminator's family. So they fell back on the elder brother, Vrthanes, and made him Katholikos. Vrthanes was succeeded by his son Yusik.[6] Yusik's son is said to have refused ordination, so he was succeeded by a cousin, Pharen or Pharnerseh;[7] then came Shahak; the primacy came back to
- ↑ Faustus, iii. 3 (Langlois, i. p. 211).
- ↑ Faustus, v. 36 (ib. 298).
- ↑ St. Gregory died and was buried at Thortan.
- ↑ Gelzer thinks it is because the elder son "had at first no inclination for the priesthood" ("Anfänge der arm. Kirche," 144).
- ↑ Agathangelos, 127 (Langlois, i. 190); in the Latin list in Mansi (ii. 699) occurs: "Armeniæ maioris Aristaces."
- ↑ For Vrthanes' marriage and two sons see Faustus, iii. v. (ed. cit. 212).
- ↑ Yusik's sons "trampled under foot the spiritual honour"; so the people determined "to find someone of the house of Gregory who could fill the throne of the Patriarchs" (Faustus, iii. 15; ed. cit. i. p. 227). The hereditary idea was clearly accepted.
