Vartanes I.

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Vartanes I , also St. Vrtanes I , Vertanes or Vartanes Parthev (the Parthian), Armenian Վրթանես Ա Պարթև, (* approx. 260; † 341 ) was Catholicos (Patriarch) of the Armenian Apostolic from 333 to 341 AD Church and is venerated as a saint by its followers .

origin

Vartanes came from the Suren-Pahlav family, a branch of the Arsacids who were Parthian great kings of Persia and from 54 to 428 AD kings of Armenia . He was the elder son of Saint Gregory the Illuminator , who was the first Catholicos (Patriarch) of the Armenian Apostolic Church . His younger brother, Aristakes I , was the second Catholicos successor to his father and, like him, is venerated as a saint.

Life

His father, Gregory the Illuminator, the Apostle of the Armenian Church, had introduced the inheritance of the highest ecclesiastical office, the Catholicos (patriarch). Vartanes therefore followed around 333, after the murder of his younger brother St. Aristakes by a nobleman who believed that he had to defend traditional paganism against the new Christian church, as the third Catholicos of the Armenian Apostolic Church.

There was resistance in the population not only against the new religion, but also against the secular central authority, which repeatedly led to uprisings of the population against the expanding church organization, but also to uprisings of the feudal nobility against kingship.

This danger was made clear to Vartanes even before he took office, since in 330 King Tiridates III. , called "the great", or "the saint" - who made Christianity the state religion in Armenia - was the victim of a conspiracy in which its chief chamberlain and the princes of Siunia ( Sjunik , today the southeastern province of Armenia) were involved. This took place as part of a hunting excursion in the historic province of Ekeleatz (south of today's city of Erzincan in northern Turkey), where King Tiridates III. was killed.

As the Armenian historian Moses von Choren (5th century AD) reports, even Vartanes, as the highest church representative, was not spared from attacks. In his capacity as a Catholic, he wanted to visit the Christian church in Akhtichat, which was in the district of Taron (region in the historic Armenian province of Turuberan, later the Bagratid principality , in today's province of Mus in Turkey ). He narrowly escaped a massacre by secret followers of the local pagan cult, as the church was built on the site where a temple previously stood, which was dedicated to the god Vahagn. A particular animosity of the pagan rural population arose from the fact that the temples of the national pagan gods and especially the associated land ownership had been transferred to the property of the Christian bishops and monasteries, which resulted in important economic disadvantages for the conservative rural population in addition to religious ones.

The common threat to the central political and religious authorities led to a close association between the patriarch and the kingship. Vertanes supported the accession to the throne of the new king of Armenia, Chosroes II. (III.), Known as “the little one”, and agreed with him to jointly ward off the dangers that threatened both. The opportunity arose shortly after the accession to the throne, as Bakur, the prince of Altzniq ( Arzanene , historical region of Greater Armenia , which is today in the northeastern part of Turkey in the province of Diyarbakir ) - one of the four most powerful feudal lords of the kingdom - after the Death of King Tiridates III. declared independent and allied with Persia. Vartanes tried to mediate, but it came to a fight in which Prince Valinak of Siunien Sjunik led the command, who defeated Bakur and took over his fiefdom, whose function as "Bdeachkh" (margrave) - and his daughter as his wife.

It also came about during the settlement of the conflict between the House of Manavazian, the lords of the land of Manavazkert ( Malazgirt , Manazkert or Manzikert) and the House of Orduni, the lords of Ordoru (Orduniq, historical region in the Basean district in the Ararat province ) to a close cooperation between Vartanes and King Chosroes II, as both tried to mediate to end the civil war that devastated the country. Here, too, there was only a military solution, with the boss of another feudal house, Vatche Mamikonian , the prince of Taron, in command, who did his job so well in 330 that he destroyed both houses, their possessions - probably on Request from Catholicos Vartanes - not to the victor, but to the bishops of Manazkert (Manzikert) and Basean.

A major project of the king, in which Vartazes undoubtedly played a part, was the construction of the new capital of the Kingdom of Armenia, Dwin (Devin), which he had built north of Artaxata and south of the confluence of the Azat (Garni tchai) river with the Araxes. Today Dwin is a ruin area, about 35 km south of today's Armenian capital Yerevan in the province of Ararat . It was supposed to replace the old residential cities of Artaxata and Vagharschapat ( Echmiadzin in the Armenian province of Armavir ).

The seat of the Catholicos founded by his father, Gregory the Illuminator, in the old capital Vagharschapat (Etschmiadzin) remained not only the residence of Vartanes, but is still the seat of the Catholicos of All Armenians , the spiritual head of the Armenian Apostolic Church.

  • The Cathedral

  • View of the cathedral (postcard)

Thanks to the cooperation between the Patriarch and the King, the young Armenian Church was able to do missionary work beyond the national borders in Iberia (Georgia) and Alania (North Ossetia).

The threat to Armenia posed by the Persian Sassanid Empire posed a new challenge, and was encouraged by individual Armenian feudal lords in the hope of becoming sovereign princes with Persian support. The rebellion of the house of the Bznuni, the Lords of Bznuniq (northeast of Lake Van ), around 335 under the Great King Shapur II (309 - 379) led to a Persian advance to Lake Van (today Van Gölü in eastern Turkey) , with a heavy defeat inflicted on the troops of the King of Armenia and their commander, Vatche Mamikonian , killed in a battle that has since been venerated as a martyr. His function passed to another feudal lord, Archavir Kamsarakan.

King Chosroes II died soon afterwards (around 339) whereby Vartanes, who had steadily increased his influence, secured the transfer of the crown to the king's son in old fidelity, who as Tigranes VII (339 - around 350) the throne of Armenia mounted. Vartanes himself died a few years later (around 341) and is venerated as a saint because of his work like his father and brother Aristakes I.

Marriage and children

Vartanes was married at a young age to a woman whose name and origin are unknown.

Children: There are different opinions in the relevant literature about the paternity of the sons Gregor and Husik (Yusik). It is undisputed that Husik (Yusik), the successor of Vartanes as Catholicos of Armenia, was a grandson of Gregory the Illuminator. However, it is not entirely clear who the father of these sons was.

After René Grousset, Husik (Yusik), who succeeded Vartanes Catholicos around 341, was his son. Even Christian Settipani mentioned that version on page 55, but points also to a more recent work of Robert H. Hewsen, in the chronology and the genealogy of Arsakiden was substantially revised, which would have an impact on the genealogy of the House of Gregorids, and are on page 66 another version, according to which Gregor and Yusik were not sons of Vartanes, but sons of his younger brother and predecessor as a Catholicos of Armenia, Aristakes I.

The filiation therefore needs more detailed clarification. Since the second version of Settipani is possibly based on an error, the sons in question are also listed here as sons of Vartanes.

  • Grigoris (Gregory), Patriarch of Iberia (317–335) (* 260, † 342)
  • Husik I. (St. Husik), Catholicos of the Armenian Apostolic Church (341–347) (* 361, † 327)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gérard Dédéyan (Ed.): Histoire du peuple arménien. 2007, p. 166.
  2. ↑ Moses von Choren : The History of Armenia. II. Chapter LXXXXI p. 130.
  3. ↑ René Grouset: Histoire de l'Arménie. 1973, p. 128.
  4. ↑ a b c René Grouset: Histoire de l'Arménie. 1973, p. 129.
  5. ↑ Moses von Choren: The History of Armenia. II. Chapter LXXXIV
  6. ↑ René Grouset: Histoire de l'Arménie. 1973, p. 132.
  7. ↑ Christian Settipani : Nos Ancêtres de l'Antiquité. Études des Possibilités de Liens Généalogiques entre les Familles de l'Antiquité et Celles du haut Moyen-Age européen. Christian, Paris 1991, ISBN 2-86496-050-6 .
  8. ^ Robert H. Hewsen: The successors of Tiridates the Great. A contribution to the history of Armenia in the Fourth Century. In: Revue des Études Arméniennes. NS Vol. 13, 1978/1979, pp. 99-126.

literature

  • Gérard Dédéyan (ed.): Histoire du peuple arménien. Private, Toulouse 2007, ISBN 978-2-7089-6874-5 , p. 166.
  • René Grousset : Histoire de l'Arménie. Des origines à 1071. Payot, Paris 1973.
  • Robert H. Hewsen: The successors of Tiridates the Great. A contribution to the history of Armenia in the Fourth Century. In: Revue des Études Arméniennes. NS Vol. 13, 1978/1979, ISSN  0080-2549 , pp. 99-126.
  • Victor Langlois : Collection des historiens anciens et modern de l'Arménie. Volume 2: Première période. - Historiens arméniens du cinquième siècle. Firmin Didot, Paris 1869, ( digitized version ).
  • Cyril Toumanoff : Studies in Christian Caucasian History. Georgetown University Press, Washington DC 1963.

See also

predecessor Office successor
Aristakes I. Catholicos of the Armenian Apostolic Church
333–341 		Husik I.
personal data
SURNAME Vartanes I.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Vartanes Parthes
BRIEF DESCRIPTION third Catholicos of Armenia
DATE OF BIRTH at 260
DATE OF DEATH 341