Mkrtitsch Chrimjan

Mkrtitsch Chrimjan

Portrait of Ayvazovski

Gravestone at the entrance to Etchmiadzin Cathedral

Mkrtitsch Chrimjan (also Mgrdich Khrimian , popularly called Հայրիկ Hayrig , German ' little father' , Armenian Մկրտիչ Խրիմեան Mkrtitsch Chrimian ; * April 4, 1820 at Van ; † October 27, 1907 ) was an Armenian church leader, publicist and writer.

Life

The name refers to the origin of his family from the Crimea . In 1854 he was ordained a priest monk as a widower in the Aghtamar monastery . On 18 October 1968 he received in Echmiadzin consecration as Bishop of Taron-Turuberan. From 1869 to 1873 he worked as the Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople . He used his office to familiarize the Armenian community of the capital Istanbul with the miserable living conditions under which the Armenians in Ottoman Anatolia were suffering, and turned to the Sultan in protest notes. Since he was viewed as too radical, he had to resign. Nevertheless, in 1878 he was entrusted with leading the Armenian delegation to the Berlin Congress . He returned disappointed and became known for his sermon about the tinny ladle , which was to mark a turning point in Armenian political consciousness. (According to this sermon, the successful Balkan peoples were given metal ladles instead of the paper with which the Armenians had been fed.)

From 1880 to 1885 he was prelate of the Armenian Apostolic Church in Van and directed his efforts towards education. In 1890, after being recalled to Constantinople, he was exiled to Jerusalem, where he worked as a writer.

From 1892 to 1907 he officiated as the “Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of all Armenians” in Echmiadzin (then Russian Armenia). He was anointed in September 1893, as he did not arrive in Etchmiadzin until one year after his election due to a lack of travel permits in the Ottoman Empire . Khrimian Hayrig strived for the independence of the Catholic from political tutelage and especially opposed the tsarist edict of confiscation of 1903 against the Armenian Apostolic Church. In the months before the Russian Revolution of 1905, the protest led the Tsar to revoke the edict. In 1907, Khrimian Hayrig, who had considerably strengthened the authority of the Etchmiadzin Catholic, died.

literature

• Rouben Paul Adalian: Historical Dictionary of Armenia The Scarecrow Pres, Lanham, Maryland and Oxford, 2002 ISBN 0-8108-4337-4

Web links

Commons : Mkrtitsch Chrimjan  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

predecessor	Office	successor
Ignatios I Kakmadschian of Constantinople	Patriarch of Constantinople of the Armenian Apostolic Church 1869–1873	Nerses II. Varjapetian
Makar I.	Catholicos of the Armenian Apostolic Church 1892–1907	Matthew II