The Armenian Catholic Patriarchate of Cilicia (1)

The Apostles Bartholomew and Thaddeus were the first evangelists of the Armenian people. As early as 301, the Vatican website continues, “Armenia became the first nation that embraced Christianity and proclaimed it a state religion, even before the Edict of Milan of 313, by which the Roman Empire tolerated Christianity, and the Edict of Theodosius [Thessolonica] by which in 380 the Empire recognised Christianity as a state religion.

“Initially grouped with the Metropolitan Church of Caesaria of Cappadocia, in Roman territory, the Armenian Church proclaimed its autonomy in the early fifth century, under the jurisdiction of a patriarch who assumed the title of Catholicos, originally attributed to the head of a Christian community outside the confines of the Roman-Byzantine Empire – or rather, outside the jurisdiction of the patriarchs. The heads of the Armenian, Nestorian and Georgian Churches conserve this title.

“From the 4th century onwards the Armenian ecclesiastical institutions were consolidated and the liturgy assumed its form, strongly influenced by the ancient rite of Jerusalem. At the same time the Armenian alphabet was born, traditionally attributed to the monk Mesrop (360.440), which made it possible to translate into the national language the liturgical texts previously written only in Greek and Syrian.”

50 years after the Council of Chalcedon (451), which affirmed the two natures—divine and human—of Christ, against Monophysitism, which affirmed that the human nature had been absorbed by the divine nature, the Armenian Church separated from the Catholic Church. “The adherence to monophysitism (one nature) of the Armenian Church was confirmed in two successive national councils held in 506 and 551,” the Vatican website specifies.

This Church separated from Rome bears the name of the Armenian Apostolic Church. It does not bear the name of Orthodox, but it is rather a Pre-Chalcedonian Church [Oriental Orthodox], since it rejects the Council of Chalcedon.

The Vatican website states: “In the eleventh century, openness towards Rome began. The Catholicos Gregory II made a pilgrimage to Rome to honour the relics of the apostles Peter and Paul, and in the subsequent years the various Catholicos acknowledged the Pontiff as Peter’s Successor. From 1205, a number of Catholicos received the pallium in Rome.”

Britannica explains that “There were Armenian Catholics, however, as early as the 12th century among the Armenians who fled from Muslim oppressors and established the kingdom of Little Armenia in Cilicia [in southern Turkey]. Although the kingdom collapsed in 1375, Armenian Catholic monks, known as the Friars of Unity of St. Gregory the Illuminator, laid the groundwork for the future Armenian Catholic Church under Dominican influence.”

The Vatican website further explains that in the 14th century, “Franciscan and Dominican missionaries arrived in Armenia and established religious centers, but problems with local hierarchies led to a break in 1441, the year that the Armenian hierarchy split into two branches, Sis and Etchmiadzin.”

“In 1740 a synod of Armenian bishops gathered in Rome to elect the first Catholic patriarch of Armenian rite, established provisionally in Kraim, Lebanon; in 1742 a new seat of the Armenian Catholic patriarchate was instituted in Bzommar, Lebanon. It transferred to Constantinople in 1866 but returned to Bzommar in 1925, where it remains to this day. The current Catholicos is [Raphaël Bedros XXI Minassian], and his jurisdiction extends to all the Armenian Catholics of the East and the diaspora,” the Vatican website explains.

“The Armenian patriarch of Cilicia now resides in Beirut and personally administers that diocese. There exist further three archdioceses (Aleppo, Baghdad, and Istanbul), three dioceses (Alexandria, Eṣfahān, and Kamichlie, Syria), one apostolic exarchy (Paris), and two ordinariates (Athens, and Gherla, Romania),” Britannica summarizes.