is the centre of their colony there. He has no suffragan bishops, but three vardapets' districts — Jaffa, Damascus, Beirut.[1] The Armenians have altars and rights in the Holy Sepulchre, at Bethlehem, and so on.
The difference between an archbishop and a bishop is merely titular. They have no metropolitan provinces under the Patriarchs. All bishops must be celibate.[2] In Turkey they are elected by the diocesan assemblies, composed of more laymen than clergy. The Russians will not allow this;[3] there the Czar appoints one or two candidates presented by the Katholikos. There are two orders of priests, as in all Eastern Churches — celibate monastic priests, and secular priests who marry once (apparently they must marry) before ordination. The monastic priests form the higher order. They only may become vardapets. The Armenian Vardapet puzzles people. Writers constantly repeat that it corresponds to a Doctor of Theology:[4] really it is something totally different. It is a rank in the hierarchy, conferred on a (celibate) priest by what looks exactly like a new ordination; it confers new ecclesiastical rights and duties.[5] Before being ordained vardapet a priest must pass an ordination examination; he receives a special delegation to preach and a pastoral staff.[6] He alone can aspire to bishoprics and higher offices.[7] Sometimes a vardapet is made head of a quasi-diocesan district (as above p. 428). He then has episcopal jurisdiction (like our vicars apostolic, who are not bishops), and he is called Aratshnord (prelate). There are many monasteries, recruiting grounds for
- ↑ Ormanian: op. cit. 185.
- ↑ We saw that once Armenian bishops were married. The celibacy of the higher clergy became a law in Sahak I's reform (p. 408).
- ↑ The Russian Government does not like elections, rights of majorities, and so on. They prevent all popular and lay influence in the Armenian Church in Russia.
- ↑ So Ormanian, 109-110.
- ↑ A doctorate of theology is merely a testimonial of proficiency given by any university which has a theological faculty to anyone. It is not an ecclesiastical rank at all. A layman may take it.
- ↑ Hence the confusion with a Doctor (who by his title would be supposed to teach). Other priests do actually preach now, by a kind of concession; but they have no staff.
- ↑ There are a higher and a lower class of vardapets.
