Catholic of Albania

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The Catholic of Albania (in the Caucasus ) or Aghwank ( Armenian Աղվանից եպիսկոպոսապետություն, Աղվանից կաթողիկոսոթյուն ) was an autocephalous part of the Armenian Apostolic Church and is now subordinate to the "Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians" in Etschmiadzin .

The traditional name of the Catholic suggests that its beginnings are related to the early days of Christianity in Caucasian Albania . Almost nothing has survived from the original liturgy and literature in Albanian . Christianity there grew and eventually became almost completely Armenized.

Gandassar, left: Surp Hovhannes Mkrtitch (John the Baptist) cathedral, built 1232–1238; right: Gavit from 1238

The oldest known center is the Amaras Monastery , which is said to have been founded by Grigoris, grandson of Gregory the Illuminator . In the 8th century Partaw was Metropolis and in 768 the place of a Synod of Bishops. The Catholicos of Albania held jurisdiction over the historic Armenian provinces of Arzach and Utik and as far as the Caspian Sea. In the 13./14. In the 19th century, the empire of the Golden Horde with the diocese of Sarai was added. From 14./15. In the 17th century the Albanian Catholicos resided in the Gandsassar monastery on the territory of the house of Hassan-Jalaljan ; Most of the holders of the Catholic cathedra came from this dynasty. In the monastery Jeriz Mankanz worked in the 17th and 18th centuries . Century a succession of counter-catholikoi. Despite the re-establishment of an Armenian Catholic in Etschmiadzin in 1441 , the “Holy See of Gandsassar” gained strength at the beginning of the 18th century and was considered the most important representative of Armenian Christianity in the east for a time in Russia and Europe. After the Russo-Persian War , the Albanian Catholicos Sargis Hasan-Jalalyan († 1827/8) was downgraded to an ordinary metropolitan by the victorious Russian Empire in 1815 at the instigation of the Catholicos of Etschmiadzin . When the Armenian church system was reorganized by Tsar Nicholas I in 1836, the territory of the former Catholic was divided into different dioceses and placed under the Armenian Consistory in Tbilisi . In 1914 the Karabakh diocese owned 222 churches and monasteries with 188 clergy and 206,000 believers in 224 settlements.

The Katholikoi Esayi († 1728) and Sargis II († 1827/8) also worked as historians in their home region.

The Gandsassar Monastery is currently the seat of the Archbishop of the Armenian Diocese of Arzach ( Nagorno-Karabakh ). In today's Azerbaijan is close to Qabala strong among 5,000 people Christian community with Udischer language , successor to the Albanian. It is run by the state as a separate church.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Aram Mardirossian: Les canons du Synod of Partaw (768) . In: Revue des Études Arméniennes NS 27 (1998/2000) 117-134.

literature

  • Marco Bais: Albania Caucasica. Ethnos, storia, territorio attraverso le fonti greche, latine e armene . Mimessis, Milan 2001. ISBN 88-87231-95-8
  • Michel van Esbroeck : Albania (in the Caucasus) . In: Real Lexicon for Antiquity and Christianity . Suppl. 1. Hiersemann, Stuttgart 2001, 257-266. ISBN 3-7772-9427-6
  • Werner Seibt (ed.): The Christianization of the Caucasus. The Christianization of Caucasus (Armenia, Georgia, Albania) . Lectures at the International Symposium Vienna 9. – 12. December 1999. Publications of the Byzantine Studies Commission. Vol. 9. Vienna 2002. ISBN 3-7001-3016-3
  • CJF Dowsett: The Albanian Chronicle of Mxit'ar Goš . In: Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 21 (1958) 472-490.
  • Esayi Hasan Jalaleants ' : A brief history of the Aghuank' region: a history of Karabagh and Ganje from 1702 - 1723 . Introd. and annotated transl. by George A. Bournoutian (Armenian studies series 15). Mazda Publ., Costa Mesa, Calif. 2009. ISBN 978-1-56859-171-1
  • Sergius [Sargis] Hasan-Jalaliants: A history of the land of Artsakh: Karabagh and Genje, 1722-1827 . Historical introd., Ed., Maps, charts and annot. by Robert H. Hewsen. Mazda Publ., Costa Mesa, Calif. 2013 (Armenian studies series 17) ISBN 978-1-56859-174-2 .

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