Note 51 — Chapter XVI · EDGMIATSIN AND THE ARMENIAN CHURCH

It is interesting to place together the two following passages, the first taken from a modern and representative Armenian source, the second from the work of a German scholar. I translate both from the German. Dr. Arshak Ter-Mikelean, professor of theology in the Academy at Edgmiatsin, writes (Die Armenische Kirche in ihren Beziehungen zur byzantinischen, Leipzic, 1892, p. 9): “The mother church of Gregory was not founded by him nor even by the apostles, who are only mortal men; but the everlasting Founder, the only Head of the Church, Himself descends in glory from Heaven and commands him to build a church after His plan and His directions on a prescribed site in the royal city, Vagharshapat. Christ Himself appears to Gregory in a vision and instructs him what he shall do ...”; and Professor Gelzer draws the inference (Die Anfänge der armenischen Kirche, in Berichte über die Verhandlungen der K. S. Gesell. der Wissenschaften zu Leipzic, Phil.-Hist. Classe, 1895, p. 127): “The ancient capital Vagharshapat ... bears at the present day the name Edgmiatsin, ‘the Only Begotten descended from Heaven,’ in everlasting remembrance that Christ Himself founded the Armenian Church and thereby established her as autokephalous and completely independent of every patriarchate, whether of the East or of the West.” ↑