Anak Suren-Pahlav

Anak Suren-Pahlav was a Parthian aristocrat who, in the service of his master, the Sassanid king of the kings Shapur I (240–270 / 72) of the Persian Empire , murdered the king of Greater Armenia , Chosroes II. Medz (Tiridates II.) Around 252 and so contributed to the fact that Greater Armenia came under the suzerainty of the Sassanid Empire for years . At the same time he was the father of Gregory the Illuminator , the Apostle of the Armenians, who was the first Catholicos ( Patriarch ) of the Armenian Apostolic Church . Anak was thus the oldest known progenitor of the Gregorid family, who exercised the office of Catholicos for five generations as an inheritance and are often venerated as saints of the Armenian Church.

origin

As the Armenian historians unanimously report, Anak came from the Parthian family of the Suras-Pahlav. The Suras were a branch of the Parthian house of the Pahlav, the other branch of which, the Karen-Pahlav, was represented by the Kamsarakan family. Perhaps the most famous representative of this second branch was the founder of Manichaeism , Mani , whose mother came from the House of Kamsarakan.

The House of Suren-Pahlav, whose most important possessions were in Sakestan - today on both sides of the Iranian-Afghan border - and whose relatives ruled the province of Sistan in eastern Iran as governors , enjoyed special privileges. So his head had the right to crown the Parthian great kings of Persia from the house of the Arsacids. The office of military commander-in-chief was hereditary in the family, so that his official title “Surena” was borrowed from the family name. A relative - and possible ancestor - of Anak was General Surenas (* approx. 84 BC; † approx. 52 BC), Spahbod (military leader) of the Parthian Empire, who died in 53 BC. Defeated the Romans under Marcus Licinius Crassus in the famous battle of Carrhae (today Harran , a city and a district of the Turkish province of Şanlıurfa ). This special position was based on the fact that the Suras-Pahlav themselves were a distant branch of the Parthian dynasty of the Arsacids , which began in 247 BC. BC to AD 224 when "kings of kings" ruled the Persian Empire (from AD 54 to AD 428) when kings ruled historical Greater Armenia and 189 to 284 Iberia .

Various traditions exist about the origin of Anak. According to a recently discovered Syrian version of Agathangelos , Anak would not have been a distant relative, but a brother of the murdered King Chosroes II (Tiridates II) and therefore a member of the Armenian Arsacids himself. The prevailing opinion of Armenian historians, according to which Anak was a member of the Suras-Pahlav, has credibility insofar as the hagiographers of Gregory the Illuminator would have liked to conceal the fact that the holy apostle of Armenia and his family - the patriarchs who are often equally holy of the Armenian Apostolic Church from the house of the Gregorids - descendants of a regicide.

biography

The Armenian historians have only very little information about the specific living conditions of Anak Suren. After Agathangelus he was lord of Ekegheac.

Anak owes its importance to two contradicting circumstances:

A murder by which he saved his ruler - Shapur I , the king of the kings of the Sassanid Empire - from an expensive war with an uncertain outcome by killing the king of the state to be subjugated.
His son, Gregory the Illuminator, through whom he became the progenitor of the Gregorides, the family of Armenia, who for five generations held the highest ecclesiastical office of Armenia, the Catholicos, as a hereditary dynasty.

An important parameter of the drama in which Anak was to play a role was the fact that the Arsacids, the Parthian dynasty that had ruled the Persian Empire for over 400 years, was brought about by Ardashir I , the founder of the Sassanid Empire, around the year 224 AD. Although Anak himself was of Arsakid origin and therefore related to the overthrown house, he, like other Persian magnates, accepted this change of dynasty and entered the service of the new dynasty to preserve the previous position of power.

In Armenia at that time a younger line of the Arsacids ruled, which lost its most important support through the fall of the powerful main line of the house in Persia. The king of Greater Armenia, Chosrow Medz - referred to by the classical authors as Tiridates II - therefore tried to bring his dethroned cousins back to power in Persia and to drive out the usurper Ardashir I. Supported by a grand coalition consisting of the Caucasian princes of Albania , Iberia and the Alans as well as in the east on Kushana , the empire of Kushan, which stretched from Bactria via Kabul and Peshawar to the northeast of India , Khosrov opened the battle that was going on dragged on for years. The energetic successor of Ardashir as king of the kings of the Persian empire Shapur I succeeded in advancing to Peshawar with his troops between 241 and 251 and overthrowing the most important ally of Armenia, the emperor of Kushana, Vasudeva (for reasons of time probably Vasishka ).

For Shapur I it was now a matter of defeating the main enemy - the Arsakid ruler of Greater Armenia - Chosrau II (Trdat / Tiridates II). Anak is said to have offered to solve the problem on his own. He therefore went with his brother to the court of the Armenian king, who was related to him, in Vagharshapat ( Etschmiadzin ), placed himself in his trust and took advantage of a favorable opportunity to murder him around 252. In revenge, not only Anak and his brother, but also the rest of his family were killed, whereby only two of his sons, who later became Gregory the Illuminator and a brother whose name was unknown, were able to escape to Caesarea in Cappadocia thanks to the care of their tutors .

This made Armenia easy prey for Shapur I, who also attacked Syria, sacked Antioch on the Orontes and even captured the ruling Roman emperor Valerian (253-260) in 260 by cunning . Also the heir of the Armenian kingdom - the later first Christian king and saint, Tiran (Helios) Tiridates Trdat III. the great one - was thereby forced to flee to the Roman Empire . This was the other great power of the time, which tried to control Armenia and which for over half a millennium - since the battle of Carrhae in 53 BC. BC to the battle of the ruins of Nineveh in AD 627 - repeatedly waged war against the Persian Empire, first against the Parthians and then against the Sassanids.

Marriage and offspring

According to Armenian tradition, Anak was married to a woman named Okohe, but nothing is known about her origin.

Anak Suren-Pahlav had at least two sons:

Gregory the Illuminator (* c. 240, † c. 332), Apostle of the Armenian Church, Catholicos ( Patriarch ) of the Armenian Apostolic Church and saint (Feast of the Armenian Church: June 9, Roman Catholic Church: September 30 )

N., a brother not known by name.

Individual evidence

^ René Grousset: Histoire de l'Arménie , Payot, Paris, 1973, pp. 114, 122.
^ ^A ^b Christian Settipani: Nos Ancêtres de l'Antiquité. Editions Christian, Paris 1991, ISBN 2-86496-050-6 , p. 53.
^ René Grousset: Histoire de l'Arménie. Payot, Paris 1973, p. 122.
↑ Faustus of Byzantium : History of Armenia Volume III, Chapter I a. XII.
^ Agathangelos Agathangelos: History of St. Gregory and the Conversion of Armenia § 17, p. 122.
↑ Werner Sundermann: Mani, the founder of the religion of Manicheism in the 3rd century CE , Encyclopaedia Iranica, 2009. Sundermann summarizes the available sources “[…] his mother was from the house Jinsajian, explained by Henning as the Armenian Arsacid family of Kamsarakan ”.
↑ VG Lukonin: Political, Social and Administrative Institutions. In: Ehsan Yarshater: Cambridge History of Iran. 3.2. Cambridge University Press, London 1983, pp. 681-747.
^ Cyril Toumanoff : Studies in Christian Caucasian History. Georgetown 1963, p. 218.
^ Anthony Wagner: Pedigree and Progress-Essays in the genealogical interpretation of history. Phillimore, London / Chichester 1975, ISBN 0-85033-198-6 , pp. 63 and 195 (Pedigree 36).
↑ Christian Settipani: Nos Ancêtres de l'Antiquité. Editions Christian, Paris 1991, ISBN 2-86496-050-6 , p. 54.
↑ Christian Settipani: Nos Ancêtres de l'Antiquité. Editions Christian, Paris 1991, ISBN 2-86496-050-6 , p. 55.
^ René Grousset: Histoire de l'Arménie. Payot, Paris 1973, p. 114. Note: Vasudeva I (191 - approx. 225) was defeated by Shah Ardaschir as early as 225, so according to the point in time it should not be Vasudeva but Emperor Vasishka (247-265) to have.
↑ It should be noted that the chronology of the Armenian kings of the 3rd century is controversial because the main source, the novel-like story of Agathangelus , has come down to us in several contradicting reviews and in different languages and mixes names (e.g. Chosrau and Trdat) and dates.

literature

René Grousset: Histoire de l'Arménie. Payot, Paris 1973.
Robert H. Hewsen: In search of Tiridates the Great. JSAS pp. 12-14.
Robert H. Hewsen: The successors of Tiridat the Great. A contribution to the history of Armenia in the Fourth Century. REArm., 13 (1978/79)
Christian Settipani : Nos Ancêtres de l'Antiquité. Editions Christian, Paris 1991, ISBN 2-86496-050-6 .
Gabriele Winkler: Gregorios the Illuminator . In: Lexicon for Theology and Church . 4, pp. 1000-1001.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME	Anak Suren-Pahlav
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Regicide and ancestor of the Gregorids
DATE OF BIRTH	3rd century
DATE OF DEATH	at 252

[1] René Grousset: Histoire de l'Arménie , Payot, Paris, 1973, pp. 114, 122.

[Settipani_53-2] A ^b Christian Settipani: Nos Ancêtres de l'Antiquité. Editions Christian, Paris 1991, ISBN 2-86496-050-6 , p. 53.

[3] René Grousset: Histoire de l'Arménie. Payot, Paris 1973, p. 122.

[4] Faustus of Byzantium : History of Armenia Volume III, Chapter I a. XII.

[5] Agathangelos Agathangelos: History of St. Gregory and the Conversion of Armenia § 17, p. 122.

[6] Werner Sundermann: Mani, the founder of the religion of Manicheism in the 3rd century CE , Encyclopaedia Iranica, 2009. Sundermann summarizes the available sources “[…] his mother was from the house Jinsajian, explained by Henning as the Armenian Arsacid family of Kamsarakan ”.

[7] VG Lukonin: Political, Social and Administrative Institutions. In: Ehsan Yarshater: Cambridge History of Iran. 3.2. Cambridge University Press, London 1983, pp. 681-747.

[8] Cyril Toumanoff : Studies in Christian Caucasian History. Georgetown 1963, p. 218.

[9] Anthony Wagner: Pedigree and Progress-Essays in the genealogical interpretation of history. Phillimore, London / Chichester 1975, ISBN 0-85033-198-6 , pp. 63 and 195 (Pedigree 36).

[10] Christian Settipani: Nos Ancêtres de l'Antiquité. Editions Christian, Paris 1991, ISBN 2-86496-050-6 , p. 54.

[11] Christian Settipani: Nos Ancêtres de l'Antiquité. Editions Christian, Paris 1991, ISBN 2-86496-050-6 , p. 55.

[12] René Grousset: Histoire de l'Arménie. Payot, Paris 1973, p. 114. Note: Vasudeva I (191 - approx. 225) was defeated by Shah Ardaschir as early as 225, so according to the point in time it should not be Vasudeva but Emperor Vasishka (247-265) to have.

[13] It should be noted that the chronology of the Armenian kings of the 3rd century is controversial because the main source, the novel-like story of Agathangelus , has come down to us in several contradicting reviews and in different languages and mixes names (e.g. Chosrau and Trdat) and dates.