bishop at Constantinople for their colony there. When Mohammed the Conqueror took the city (1459), according to the rather stupid Turkish idea of uniformity he wanted to organize the subject Armenian "nation" on the same lines as the "Roman nation" (the Orthodox). These had as supreme civil head[1] in Turkey a Patriarch of Constantinople ; so the Conqueror organized the Armenians on just the same lines. He meant them to have a responsible chief at the capital, so he ignored the Katholikos in a distant monastery, and made the Armenian Bishop of Constantinople, Hovakim (Joachim, formerly of Brusa), Patriarch in 1461, gave him civil authority over all Armenians in the Turkish Empire and the sole right of representing them before the Government.[2] The Church acquiesced in this. Since then there has been an Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople, second to the Katholikos in rank, acknowledging a theoretic supremacy in him, but practically the most powerful member of the Armenian hierarchy. The origin of their Patriarchate of Jerusalem is even more unwarranted. They had a bishop there, as have most Eastern Churches. In the middle of the 18th century the Katholikos seems to have allowed this bishop to bless the holy chrism. Encouraged by this, seeing himself in a Patriarchal city, knowing too that his brother at Constantinople had obtained the title and that it was becoming very cheap, the Armenian Bishop of Jerusalem declared himself a Patriarch too, and began to ordain bishops. The Katholikos stopped this; but he kept the title. So it came about that the Armenian Church has five Patriarchs — the Katholikos at Etshmiadzin and the Patriarchs of Constantinople, Sis, Aghthamar,[3] and Jerusalem.
We may note here that as the Armenians wandered throughout Europe and Asia (p. 387) the Katholikos began to ordain bishops
- ↑ Orth. Eastern Church, 238-240.
- ↑ Till the 19th century the Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople had these same civil rights over all Monophysites in the empire. Copts and Jacobites could approach the Porte only through him. Now the Jacobite Patriarch of Antioch is the acknowledged civil head of his "nation," and the Copts have nothing more to do with the Porte. Indeed, the latest developments (the constitution of 1908) are abolishing the whole principle of separate "nations" with civil heads.
- ↑ Those of Sis and Aghthamar are now also called "Katholikos."
