CHAPTER XIII
THE ARMENIAN CHURCH TO-DAY
The Gregorian (Monophysite) Church of Armenia is as near an approach to a national Church as exists (except perhaps that of Abyssinia). A perfect national Church would include all and only the people of one nation. The Armenian Church is only for Armenians. It would not, I think, be possible for a foreigner to join it. It includes at any rate the greater part of the nation. Not all, because the Uniates and Protestants form important minorities. But if you meet an Armenian, whether in Calcutta or Manchester, he is most likely to belong to the Gregorian Church and to abhor the Council of Chalcedon ; not that he understands anything about what that Council defined, but because he is an Armenian. Undoubtedly the national Church is the main factor which preserves and holds together this people. What they really care about is not a metaphysical concept of our Lord's person, but the Armenian rite in the Armenian language by an Armenian priest, which to them in foreign lands is a precious inheritance from the wooded mountains where the sons of Haik were once free and happy under the shadow of Noah's Ararat.
1. The Armenian Faith
Armenians resent being called Eutychians, and with reason. They deny the special heresies of Eutyches (pp. 167-169); every Armenian bishop at his ordination denounces him by name.[1] But they are heretics, namely Monophysites. They deny what
424
- ↑ Ormanian, p. 83.
