I was playing Crusader Kings III, and I wanted to add a little flavor for Armenia. To do this, I will start from afar, then later perhaps I will make a note for the Bagratid era.
Living in the Soviet Union and Russia, of course, since childhood I have been interested in history, including Armenia. Of course, I know about the ancient state of Urartuhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urartu, whose king Argishti was cursed by the Assyrian kings as an ardent enemy.
Later i was surprised that the historical tradition of the Armenians comes from the migration of the Brigs tribe, who first lived in Macedonia and who in Asia Minor began to be called Phrygians, or Mushki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mushki in Assyrian. The Phrygians, together with the Sea Peoples, destroyed the Hittite kingdom and settled the lands of Asia Minor, then they carried out further expansion to the east, but were stopped by Assyria.
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Ancient and Medieval Armenia occupied the Armenian Highlands, between the Asia Minor peninsula and the Iranian plateau, with its surrounding valleys. The snow-covered peak of Greater Ararat (Armenian Masis. 5165 m) divided the Highlands into Western Armenia and Eastern Armenia. Western Armenia, bounded from the north by the Pontic Range, and from the west by the course of the Kyzylyrmak River (Greek Halys), belonged to the upper reaches of the Euphrates (Armenian Prat), the region of Taronitida (Armenian Turuberan) - on the northwestern coast of Lake Van (Arm. Tosb) and in rocky gorges to the west of it, Sophena (Armenian Tsopk) - in the valley of the lower Muratchay (among the Greeks the Western Euphrates, Armenian Aratsani) and its tributaries with the mountains of Sasun, Arzanen (Aldznik) - between the ridge of the Eastern Taurus (Armenian . Npat) and the Tigris (Armenian Dklat), Basoropeda (Armenian Vaspurakan) - in the mountainous inter-lake area of Van and Urmia.
Eastern Armenia occupied the corresponding part of the highlands, which was limited from the north and east by the Lesser Caucasus, and from the south by the Kotur ridge and Lake Van. Its heart, the Ararat Valley, lies between the upper reaches of the Araks (Armenian Yeraskh) in the east and Lake Sevan in the west. The rest of the regions were grouped around it: in the north-west of Gogarenа (Armenian Gugark, later Pambak), in the south and east - respectively Syunia (Armenian Syunik, later Zangezur) and Orhisten (Armenian Artsakh, later Karabakh). Orkhistena-Artsakh was a zone of cultural interaction between Armenians and the Udins, the indigenous people of the region. In the far north, along the channels of the rivers Chorokh and its tributaries, at the transition of the uplands to the Black Sea lowlands, there were districts known to Armenians as Taik, and to Georgians as Tao, a zone of centuries-old interaction between Indo-Europeans and Western and Southern Caucasians.
Armenia before Tigranes II the Great
The richness of the Armenian highland in copper ores created favorable conditions for the emergence of one of the oldest centers of metallurgy here. Excavations of settlements in the vicinity of Etchmiadzin testify to the existence from the second half of the V millennium BC satisfied with advanced copper smelting technology.
The second half of the II millennium BC in the alpine regions, the bronze culture flourished, when numerous artistic metal products (vessels, jewelry, etc.) and red-clay ceramics with black geometric painting were created. At the peak of the improvement of the bronze industry, and especially during the transition to the Iron Age (late II - early I millennium BC), social differentiation was clearly manifested. The main ethnolinguistic communities here were the Eastern Caucasians (Hurri-Urartians and Nakho-Dagestanis), Proto-Kartvelians (Karts and Zans), and Anatolians (Hetto-Luvians and Palaians), who were later joined by the Aryans (Western and Northern Iranians). From the XIII century BC, when the Assyrians defeated the Hurrian state of Mitanni, the neighboring tribes united into large unions (Uruatri, Nairi, Dayani, etc.). In the wars with Assyria in the 890s - 880s BC the kingdom of Biaynili was born, as it is called in royal inscriptions in one of the North Caucasian languages, related to Hurrian, which became official for it. In parallel Akkadian versions, the equivalent of this horonym is Nairi, but in the area of the Sumerian-Akkadian civilization itself, this state is better known under the designation Urartu, from where the Old Testament "Country Ararat" comes from (IV Kings XIX: 37).
At the end of the IX - the first half of the VIII century BC Biaynili (for which the name "Kingdom of Van" was also fixed in Urartology) experienced a brilliant heyday. It developed its own high civilization. King Sarduri II (764-735 BC) ruled over most of the Armenian highlands, including the districts on the upper Euphrates, where Armenian dialects had already prevailed.
The mountainous region of the upper reaches of the rivers Euphrates, Kelkitchay and Kyzylyrmak is called in the Middle Hittite epigraphy (XVI-XV centuries BC) Armatan, and in the New Hittite (XIV-XIII centuries BC) - Hayasa. A decisive milestone in the formation of the proto-Armenian linguistic array is considered to be the settlement of the middle lands of the collapsed Biaynili by speakers of an isolated Indo-European language, remotely related to ancient Greek. In all likelihood, the people known to the Assyrians as the Urum, approximately from this area, in the XII century BC invaded the province of Shupria (southwest of Lake Van) and gave it its name - Urme, which, apparently, received the Hurrian toponymic Armenne ("country of Urme/Arme"). In the middle of the VIII century BC Shupria/Urme became part of Biaynili. The local population, presumably, adopted the ethnonym Mushki-Urumians and their language, which was layered on the Hurri-Urartian dialects of Western Armenia. Under the auspices of the military elite of the Armenians in the middle of the VI century BC early state formations were formed, within which, in complex interaction with neighboring and surrounding East Caucasian (Hurri-Urartians), Kartvelian (Saspirs), Anatolian (Hitto-Luvian) peoples, a new nationality was emerging. Among them stood out the Ervandid principality (Armenian Yervanduni), which recognized the supreme dominion of the Medes.
Armenian tribes that scattered from the upper reaches of the river Galis to the districts of Matiena (Urmian basin), took part in the defeat of the New Assyrian Empire. It is not for nothing that the books of the Prophets mention in the same row "the kingdoms of Ararat, Minya and Askenaz" and "the peoples, the kings of Media, its governors and all its city rulers, and all the land subject to it" (Jer LI: 28). Vague echoes of these events can be found in the first ancient Armenian chronicles. So, Moses of Khoren (Movses Khorenatsi) tells about Prince Paruyr, the son of Skyordi, who helped Media in the conquest of Nineveh.
In 521-520 BC after fierce resistance, Armenia submitted to the Achaemenids, in the epigraphy of which for the first time its name is found, which later became the main language in all languages of the region, with the exception of Armenian and Georgian itself. In the trilingual Behistun inscription of Darayavahush (Darius I the Great; last quarter of the VI century BC), the Elamite and Old Persian columns mention the country of Arminа, whose synonym in the Akkadian column is Urartu. A star-shaped Babylonian world map of the V century BC carved on a clay slab also indicates "Armenia" among the six regions that correspond to the cardinal points. In the "History" of Herodotus, the lands of the "rich cattle" Armenians are included in the XIII and XVIII taxable districts (satrapies) of the Persian state. Even later, Xenophon finds "Armenia, a vast and rich country", under the rule of the Orontides family (Armenian Yervandakan), who, having intermarried with the Achaemenids, ruled hereditarily with the dynastic name Orontes (Armenian Evrand).
In the second half of the I millennium BC, apparently, as a result of mutual influence and mixing of Armenians with Iranian (Cimmerians, Scythians, Medes), Semitic (Arameans, Jews, Assyro-Babylonians) and other ethnic groups, the Armenian people were formed with their own ethnonym and ethnic territory. At the same time, the exoethnonym, derived from the name of Arme/Urme - Arminа, turned out to be opposed to the endoethnonym Hayk and the name of the country itself in the language of Hay Armenians - Hayk (later Hayastan), which, according to a controversial, but most likely of the existing hypotheses, goes back to the noun Hittite (through hypothetically reconstructed protoform of hatios). The historical tradition associated with the Biayn great power, apparently, was completely interrupted.
The Proto-Armenian language is the result of a deep interpenetration of the Paleo-Balkan adstratum with the Hurri-Urartian substrate, which influenced, first of all, its phonetics and vocabulary, especially related to the surrounding nature and landscape. He was also subjected to the strongest influence of Western Iranian languages. Iranian domination from the end of the VI century BC left a noticeable imprint on almost all aspects of the material (craft and architecture) and especially spiritual (language, power ideas, chronology) culture of the emerging Armenian ethnos. Thus, the lunisolar calendar was used by the Armenians for almost two millennia (from the middle of the V century BC to the beginning of the XIV century AD). Under the Achaemenids, life resumed or continued in the settlements of Tushpa and Erebuni. In the IV century BC on the ruins of Argishtikhinili, a new city of Armavir grew up, which was destined to turn into a pan-Armenian capital.
In 331 BC Alexander the Great at Gaugamela defeated the Persian army, in the ranks of which fought a large militia put up by the Orontids (40 thousand infantry and 7 thousand mounted). After that, the satraps of Armenia Yervand III and Mifravst founded two semi-independent kingdoms. The first of them initially recognized the supremacy of Alexander, but when strife broke out between his successors - the diadochs, in 316 BC separate from the Macedonians. In addition, independence in 322 BC found Lesser Armenia with its capital in Ani Daranali (now Kamakh, near the Turkish Erzinjan) - the ancient land of Hayasa. From the north it was separated from Pontus by the mountains of Skidis and Pariadra, from the south from Syria and Cilicia by Taurus, from the west from Cappadocia by the spurs of Antitaurus. In the east, the Euphrates served as its border with Sophena in the interfluve of the Western Euphrates (now Karasu) and the Western Tigris, which the Biayns knew as Tsopani. Here in 223 BC a separate possession arose, where Zariadr ruled, subordinate as a governor-strategist to the most powerful of the Diadochi dynasty - the Seleucids, whose crown province was Syria.
In 220 BC the Seleucid monarch Antiochus III the Great annexed the Orontid possessions to Central and Southern Armenia, which he already controlled. Thus, by the end of the century, under the name of "Great Armenia" for the first time, a large part of the Armenian Highlands was united. The boundaries of Greater Armenia were: from the west - the Euphrates (separating it from Lesser Armenia), from the north the Koron mountains and the river Chorokh (from Colchis and Iberia), from the east the Araks and the Azerbaijani plateau, from the south - the Eastern Taurus (Nifat) and the Tigris (from Assyria and Mesopotamia). Beginning at the turn of the III-II centuries BC here, as a strategist on behalf of Antiochus III, the local ruler Artaxias (Artakhshasi) ruled. When Antiochus was defeated by the Romans at Magnesia (190 BC), both Greater Armenia and Sophene regained their independence. Artaxius and Zariatrius (known to later Armenian tradition as Artashes and Zarekh) placed royal crowns on their heads. This was facilitated by the steady weakening of the Seleucid power, largely due to the birth of a new force in the East - Parthia, which from the middle of the III century. BC. the family of Arshak ruled invariably.
Artakhshasi (Artashes I, 189 - c. 160 BC) actively intervened in the affairs of the neighboring principalities of Iran and Asia Minor and in every possible way contributed to the collapse of the Seleucid kingdom, thanks to which he was able to unite the main regions between the Caspian and Black Sea coasts under his scepter. In 176 BC he erected a new capital - Artaxata (arm. Artashat), guided by the advice of Hannibal, who, after the collapse of Antiochus the Great, went to his service. The city inherited from Armavir a favorable location on the international trade routes in the bend of the Araks. In 165 BC Artakhshasi's success was reinforced by the battle with the troops of Antiochus IV Epiphanes on the Tigris. The first agrarian reforms in the history of Armenia, which are believed to have strengthened small-scale agriculture in the country, are also associated with his name.
Armenian kingdom between Iran and Rome
The heirs of Artashes - the Artashesids - were to occupy the throne for more than a century and a half. They reached the pinnacle of power under his grandson Tigranes II the Great (95-56/5 BC), who completed the unification of the countries of the Armenian Highlands. In the first years of his reign, he subjugated Sophene (94 BC) in the west, Atropatena and western Media in the east, and imposed his supremacy on the rulers of Cappadocia, Alvania and Iveria, reaching the Caspian Sea in campaigns. Only Lesser Armenia remained apart, which at the end of the II century BC passed into the hands of the Pontic kingdom of Mithridates VI Eupator, who built more than 70 fortified castles there. Having concluded a military-political alliance and intermarried with him, Tigranes II in 83 BC put Seleucid Syria under his control with its Hellenistic metropolis of Antioch-on-Orontes, which he turned into one of his capitals. His expansion thus affected the Mediterranean, where he laid hands on the plains of Cilicia and Phoenicia as far as Palestine. In the south, Commagene and part of Mesopotamia with Adiabene, which he recaptured from the Parthians, submitted to him.
Due to the unprecedented expansion of the boundaries of the Armenian state, Artaxata (Artashat), which remained in its extreme northeastern part, could no longer fulfill the functions of the capital. The throne henceforth moved to Tigranakert, which grew in 77 BC also at the crossroads of caravan routes on the banks of a tributary of the Tigris (near present Silvan in Turkey). Possessing rich cultural centers and the most important trade routes from the Mediterranean to the East, Great Armenia briefly turned into the most extensive state of the Hellenistic world, but the economic diversity, ethnic diversity, and separatism of the outskirts made it internally fragile.
As an ally of the sworn enemy of the Roman Republic - Mithridates VI Eupator, after his defeat, Tigranes came face to face with the threat of losing his positions in Asia Minor. In 69 BC the legions of Lucullus invaded the borders of Armenia, who, after a short siege, captured Tigranakert, plundered and destroyed it to the ground, but failed in an attempt to capture Artaxata. In 66 BC, when Pompey's army set out to repeat this attempt, Tigranes chose not to risk it and came unarmed to the camp of the conquerors with an expression of humility. At the cost of losing almost everything previously captured in the west (Syria, Phoenicia, Eastern Cilicia), he was able to keep under his rule, with the title of "king of kings", Great Armenia proper, as a "friend and ally of the Roman people."
In the middle of the I c. BC on the territory of the Armenian Highlands, a fierce confrontation unfolded between Rome and Parthia. Armenia Minor on the right bank of the Euphrates became the initial bridgehead of the Republic on the highlands, which, after the death of Mithridates Eupator, in 62 BC, the Romans entrusted to the dependent king of Galatia, Deiotar, and after the death of his son, for a long time, were transferred to various semi-independent rulers. Under the control of the Republic, its borders repeatedly changed, and from time to time it fell under the rule of the sovereigns of the Great Armenia.
The son and heir of Tigranes II, Artavazd II (56/55-34 BC), not only evaded the supply of military contingents promised by his father for the Artashat peace, but also, in alliance with the Parthian Arsacids, openly opposed the shattered Roman dominion. Taking advantage of the fact that in May 53 BC the Parthian commander Surena defeated the triumvir Crassus at Carrah, who fell on the battlefield with most of the soldiers, Artavazd won back Sophena and Lesser Armenia, which they had previously captured from the Romans. In 51 BC he sent his commander Barzafarn, together with the Arshakid prince Pacorus, to Syria. by 40 BC Pacorus and Barzafarn took possession of almost the entire Eastern Mediterranean, creating the threat of a breakthrough into Egypt and the Balkans. In 39 BC Mark Antony sent here his best legate, Ventilius Bassus, who defeated the Parthians at Antioch. This forced Artavazd to once again recognize his dependence on the Republic, but in 37 BC. he refused to participate in the campaign against Parthia, which was prepared by Anthony, who arrived in the East.
In 36 BC the Parthian expedition began, which, after a series of sensitive failures, ended up in 34 BC redirected against Armenia and led to the capture of Artavazd: Antony, under the pretext of negotiations, lured him to his camp and sent him to Alexandria, where he, clad in golden chains, appeared before the Egyptian queen Cleopatra. In 31 BC the Armenian king, who gained fame among his fellow tribesmen as a playwright and historian who was fond of Hellenic philosophy, was beheaded for refusing to turn his face to Cleopatra as a sign of humility during a triumphal procession. Although the son of Artavazd, Artashes II (34-29 BC) restored the independence of Armenia, his brother Tigran III was already a protege of the Roman Empire, where his accession was marked by minting coins with the legend Armenia capta ("Armenia captive").
In 1 AD the dynasty of Artaxiads (Artashesids) fell, and until the middle of the I century. AD a total of about a dozen crowned kings reigned - puppets of the two great powers of Late Antique Asia Minor, as a rule, the offspring of the ruling families of neighboring countries. The turning point came in 52 AD, when the Parthian sovereign Valakhsh I declared his brother Tiridates (Armenian Trdat) the king of Armenia, which caused a protracted war with the Empire. Its decisive phase came in 58-59, when the legions of Corbulo destroyed Artashat, fearing not to hold it, and occupied Tigranakert, where in 60 they enthroned Tigranes VI.
In 61, Valakhsh again moved his troops into the Armenian lands and forced Corbulo to retreat. The confrontation temporarily stopped the Rhandeian Agreement of 62: Tiridates I (63-80) was approved on the Armenian throne, who nevertheless pledged to receive the crown in Rome from the hands of Emperor Nero. An ardent admirer of the Avesta, the new sovereign traveled to the Eternal City in 65 by land, so as not to defile the water element, sacred to the Zoroastrians. The Romans celebrated this purely formal expression of humility by issuing a special series of coins with the legend Armenia recepta ("Armenia taken"). Nero, who arranged the coronation ceremony of Tiridates with magnificent festivities, even provided him with funds, builders and artisans for the restoration of Artashat (66).
Tiridates thus became the first of the Armenian Arsacids, but not the ancestor of a special branch of this dynasty. Until the middle of the II century. the throne of Armenia, which was considered the second most important after the Parthian, was occupied by the younger representatives of the main line of the Arshakid family, who sometimes even went to recognize obedience to Rome. The rivalry between the two powers did not subside, and Greater Armenia, conditionally considered as independent, remained a buffer zone. Lesser Armenia was included in the province of Cappadocia in 72 by Emperor Vespasian, and it remained under the direct control of the Roman-Byzantine administration for more than a millennium.
In 113, the Emperor Trajan again launched hostilities against Parthia and in 114, having seized the lands of the Armenians, divided them between the provinces of Cappadocia, Greater and Lesser Armenia. However, a few years later, his successor Adrian (117-138) preferred to withdraw the legions beyond the Euphrates and restore the kingdom here under the scepter of Valarsh I (117-140), who, moreover, became the first Armenian Arsacid who inherited his throne. When, during the next Parthian war (163-166), the Romans occupied Artashat for the second time, they also considered it expedient to preserve the independence of Armenia. Then, in the second half of the II century. AD, its capital was Valarshapat, founded on the site of the village of Vardkesavan (existed from the II century BC). The Arshakid sovereigns were even able to include Sofena in their inheritance, where they kept treasures in the Bnabel castle.
The economy of Greater Armenia was based on agriculture, where, along with the communal villagers (shinakan) and sharecroppers, slaves were employed. In large cities involved in large-scale transit trade, which, along with Artashat, Tigranakert and Armavir, included Valarshapat, Yervandashat, Arshamashat and others, there was further progress in metallurgy, pottery, stone-cutting and carpentry, the manufacture of household utensils, leather, weaving and jewelry, construction, artistic crafts (silver bowls and rhytons, fragments of sculpture, mosaics). Around the agglomerations there were estates - agaraks and dastakerts. Close cross-cultural contacts with Hellas, Asia Minor and Syria left a noticeable Hellenistic imprint on the material culture of Armenia. It is evident in architecture - in urban planning (Artashat) and in the types of structures (the amphitheater in Tigranakert, the last centuries BC - the first centuries AD and the Garni complex, I-III centuries), sculpture (statue of Aphrodite from Artashat , end of II - beginning of I century BC), as well as numismatics and epigraphy (the use of Greek Koine). There is also indirect evidence of the penetration of ancient Greek theatrical traditions into the country. Despite the significant Iranian influence, which increased under Parthian rule, it was Hellenism, rooted in the historical core of Armenia, that made possible its early Christianization. Hellenization affected the elite to the greatest extent; the common people rather remained faithful to the original culture of the Middle Asian type. The religion of Armenia was also syncretic: along with the most ancient deities, whose cult dates back to the Biayn times, there were both Iranian-Aryan and Hellenic beliefs.
In the sources there are references to the Armenian epic, oral art - both common folk and belonging to gusan singers and vipasana storytellers. Conditionally reconstructed according to the data, first of all, of Movses Khorenatsi, the epic cycle of Vipasank included several epic stories, the heroes of which, in addition to the already mentioned Hayk and Ara, were Tigran and Azhdahak, Artashes and Satinik, who had historical prototypes. The most archaic images include the brave serpent fighter (vishapakah) Vahagn, who personified the triumph of the solar principle over the chthonic elements. This is how he is described in one fragment of Armenian folklore that has come down to us.
The sky was tormented by childbirth,
the sky was tormented by childbirth,
the crimson sea was tormented by childbirth.
Birthing pains seized
In the sea and a reed reed.
Smoke came out of the reeds
The flames came out of the reeds.
And a fair-haired youth jumped out of the flame.
His curls were on fire
And the beard was on fire
The eyes were - the sun!
Only fragmentary information has been preserved about the pre-Christian writing of the Armenians. It is known about the existence of palace chronicles, "temple books", collections of legends, etc. under the Artashesid and Arshakid kings. The first generation of Armenian authors report the destruction of pagan writings and the banning of theatrical performances in the decades following the christening of the country. Over time, worship in the Armenian Apostolic Church became brightly musical and theatrical; on holidays, mysteries were played, which became an organic part of the Armenian church culture.
The strengthening of contacts with Parthia contributed to the further Iranianization of the socio-political system, language, religion and culture of Armenia. It is no coincidence that the Armenian dynastic tradition, ancientizing the ties of its country with the Arshakid house, built a line of succession of supreme power, connecting the Artashesids with the Arshakids as the descendants of the Parthian Valarshak, the brother of Arshak the Great, whom he allegedly sent to replace the royal throne at the request of the Armenians themselves. The same Valarshak appears as the unifier of the Armenian lands, who put an end to the rule of the Zarekh family in Lesser Armenia by killing his son Morpulikes. At the same time, the desire of the Armenian elite to protect themselves from the encroachments of the Parthian Arshakids in the first centuries AD. pushed its representatives - the relatively weak royal throne and the strengthened regional rulers - nakharars - to rapprochement with Rome.
Thus, the system of "political dualism in the Middle East" (the expression of A.A. Bokshchanin), which took shape in the I century BC - I century AD, meant for Armenia the starting point in a thousand-year period of compromise and maneuvering between the largest hegemonic states of the West (Greco-Roman Mediterranean) and East (Iranian-Semitic Asia Minor). The conditions for this maneuvering became even more complicated when, at the beginning of the III century. The Sassanids seized the supreme power in Iran. The Persian shah Ardakhshir Papakan (Greek Artaxerxes) overthrew and destroyed the Parthian royal house in the person of Artaban V. In Armenia, where the Arshakids retained the throne, Khosrov I the Great (217-238) waged protracted wars with him in revenge for his kinsman, but was treacherously murdered at his instigation. In the second half of the century, the Armenian kingdom fell into direct dependence on the offspring of Ardakhshir.
Christian Armenia
In the III-IV centuries further changes were taking place in the structure of the Armenian society. The communal-shinakans and the slaves (erdumards) planted on the land gradually merged into a single group of dependent peasants-ramiks. By the IV century the growth of large landownership led to the fact that one area (nahang) Ayrarat was "royal", and the rest belonged on a hereditary basis to the princes-nakharars, whose relationship with the throne was very contradictory. Under these conditions, the monotheistic religion naturally seemed to be an important tool for strengthening the authority of the Arshakid sovereign as opposed to local cults and Zoroastrian beliefs, which were patronized by Sasanian Iran.
Data on the pre-Christian religion of the Armenians have been preserved in two groups of sources: ancient authors (Strabo, Pliny, Diodorus, Plutarch, Dio Cassius) mainly report on temples and statues of deities, Armenian chroniclers of the V-VI centuries. (Agatangelos, Pavstos, Movses, Elisha, Lazar, Eznik) focus on beliefs and local cults. The prevalence of chthonic rituals is evidenced by the frequency of statues of "vishaps" - huge stone fish. The earliest layer is ideas about deified heroes associated with a mixed Hurri-Urartian and Thraco-Phrygian environment - the warrior Torke (Hurrian Tarhu), the progenitor Hayk, who struck the hostile Bel with an arrow - the personification of the Assyrian-Babylonian threat, and his descendant Arai the Beautiful, symbolizing dying and resurrecting nature. However, this layer turned out to be early and densely blocked by the cult-religious practice of Aryan (more precisely, Indo-Iranian) origin, which settled in the highlands under the progressive influence of neighboring Iran, starting from the Median times, and only strengthened under the Achaemenid domination. Its basis was a local form of Mazdaism.
For centuries, the Armenians have revered Aramazd (the Parthian form of the name Ahura Mazda), the "father of all gods", "creator of heaven and earth", "producer of abundance and fertility", "great and courageous", "powerful", whose main temple was located in the fortress of Ani-Kamakh, where the Arshakid kings were buried. The daughter of Aramazd was considered to be Anahit (Avest. Ardvi-Sura Anahita, Middle Persian Anahid) - "the mother of all knowledge", and the son of Mher (Avest. Mitra, Middle Persian Mihr), whose sanctuaries were scattered throughout the country. As the patroness of earthly fertility, Spendarmet (Avest. Spenta-Armaiti; Middle Persian Spandarmad) was revered. The temples of the brave dragon slayer Vahagn (Avest. Veretragna; Middle Persian Varahran) were surrounded with special love, about whom many songs and legends were transmitted. The names of the Avestan celestials Khaurvatat and Amertat are reflected in the name of the havrot-mavrot flower.
In the Hellenistic era, the Medo-Parthian gods were identified with the Olympian ones: Aramazd with Zeus, Anahit with Artemis, Vahagn with Hercules, Mihr with Helios. The question of the time of the penetration of Zoroastrianism into the Armenian lands is debatable, the only thing that is indisputable is that the first temples of fire appeared under the Achaemenids, as evidenced by the excavations of Erebuni. However, it is possible to speak about the acceptance of the Zoroastrian religion by the Armenian society in the proper sense of the word only with the accession of the Arshakids, under whom it had an official status.
The impact of Aryan ideas on the demonology of the Armenians was enormous, which developed superstitions regarding harmful animals and insects: snakes, scorpions, frogs, ants (the very ones that Zoroastrianism considers as creations of an evil principle - Ankhra Mainyu). They were well aware of the demonic beings of the male (devas) and female (wig) sex. The designations of a number of supernatural beings, such as angels (khreshtak), are also of Indo-Iranian origin.
The initial center of Christianity in the Armenian Highlands was, apparently, Lesser Armenia, where communities, where communities professing the Gospel, most likely appeared in the II century: the New Testament and Hagiographic tradition links the enlightenment of Armenians, naturally, with the apostolic age. Christ's teaching, apparently, penetrated through Edessa and through Cappadocia, which was reflected, in particular, in the terminology borrowed from both the Syrians and the Greeks, and some Greek terms ("bishop", "synod", "heretic ", etc.) could come to the Armenian language through Syriac, where they managed to take root. Data on the religious situation in Armenia before the beginning of the IV c. are extremely scarce: the list of the first seven bishops is restored on the basis of the epic-hagiographic codes of Agatangelos and Buzandaran and the chronological list of the middle of the VII century.
The Gregorian church-historical tradition connects the initial steps of the gospel sermon with a legend that goes back to the Syrian tradition about the Apostle Thaddeus (Sir. Addai). Arriving in Edessa to the court of the king of Osroena Abgar, who asked Christ for a cure, Thaddeus baptized him and his family and brought the good news to the townspeople, among whom he later died, surrounded by reverent reverence. In a somewhat modified form, the same tradition reproduces the "Church History" of Eusebius (Eusebius) Pamphilus of Caesarea, from its pages it, apparently, stepped into the Armenian environment, where it received further development, designed to explain the epithet "Apostolic", which applies to own Church of St. Grigor.
Ancient Armenian translation of the legend (attested already in the V century BC)) represents Abgar of Edessa as an Armenian and has a continuation in which the apostle departs from him to Greater Armenia, to the court of his relative, King Sanatruk. Here, having baptized Princess Sandukht and many other persons, Thaddeus undergoes a painful execution in the area of Shavarshavan (gavar Artaz). According to one version, before his death, he manages to meet on the Artashat hill with another apostle - Bartholomew, who came to the Armenian lands after wandering around Persia and India, and, for turning to Christ, Voguhi, the sister of Sanatruk, and many nobles also receives a martyr's crown.
A more objective indicator of the presence of Christians in Armenia at the turn of II-III centuries. serve as indirect indications of ancient sources. In a quotation from the Acts of the Apostles (Acts II: 9), conducted by Tertullian, Armenia is mentioned among the countries whose languages were spoken by the apostles after Pentecost (tractate "Against the Jews", 197) Tertullian (VII). A century later, Eusebius Pamphilus in his "Church History" mentions the local bishop Meruzhan, to whom the Bishop of Alexandria Dionysius I the Great addressed (c. 251-255) his admonition about the "fallen" - those who renounced Christ during the persecution.
The rapid Christianization of the Roman East paved the way for the further success of the new religion in the Arshakid dominions. At the end of the III century. the Romans, who under Diocletian again singled out Lesser Armenia as an independent province, launched an onslaught in the direction of Greater Armenia, where in 286/287 they helped Tiridates IV ascend the throne of their ancestors. However, his position in Valarshapat remained unstable until 297, when the Empire imposed the Treaty of Nisibin on Iran, which marked the weakening of the Sasanian influence on Armenia and its further rapprochement with Rome. The attitude of the Roman and, accordingly, the Armenian authorities towards the worshipers of the Crucified had yet to undergo sensitive fluctuations, but the strengthening of the political role of Christianity had already become irreversible. Evidence of this is the remark made by Eusebius when talking about the unsuccessful war of the emperor Maximian with the Armenians (312/313): "People who have long been friends and allies of Rome, moreover, Christians, and zealous Christians, this theomachist tried to force to sacrifice to idols and demons .
The key figure in the history of the baptism of Armenia was called to be Tiridates IV, later nicknamed the Great, whose reign was opened by a strong persecution of Christians. Their peaceful resistance was inspired by another man whose origin and childhood are covered with numerous and conflicting legends. Gregory (Armenian Grigor) is called the "Second Illuminator" (after Thaddeus and Bartholomew) or simply the "Illuminator" (Armenian Lusavorich). According to the unanimous statement of the Armenian chroniclers, he was born (most likely around 239) into a family belonging to the Parthian royal family; this is also indicated by the fact that his descendants are Grigorides up to the beginning of the V century. were nicknamed Partev ("Parthian"). He spent his youth in Caesarea Cappadocia, where he married the Christian Mary (according to another version, Julitta), who gave him two sons - Aristakes and Vrtanes. After three years of family life, the couple parted by mutual agreement, and Mary retired to a monastery with her youngest child, who, having reached the age of majority, was educated in his native Caesarea, then followed the hermit Nicomachus, and later took the priesthood, as for the eldest, he remained a layman.
The existing dates for the baptism received by the Armenian king and people from Grigor Lusavorich fluctuate between 284 and 314: of these, 301 was accepted by the Apostolic Church, but 314 is more consistent with the data of Greco-Roman sources and correlates with the impact that had on Armenia Empire. Shortly before that, according to legend, Tiridates, stricken with a serious illness, released Artashat Gregory from prison, whom he had previously tortured and fifteen years in prison for preaching the good news. Soon, at the local Council in Caesarea, the recent prisoner was ordained to the hierarchal rank by Bishop Leontius of Cappadocia. Thus, the beginning of the procedure was laid, according to which each newly elected primate of the Armenian Church received consecration from the Archbishop of Caesarea.
Concerned about making the dignity hereditary among his own descendants, Gregory, during his lifetime (about 315), appointed Aristakes as his successor, who, at the call of an elderly parent, refused hermitage, accepted the episcopal dignity and helped him in the leadership of believers. Around 320, the Illuminator, leaving him the chair, himself went to the cave desert of Mane, from where he returned to the world only from time to time. His relics, found in 325/6 by local shepherds, spread throughout the Christian world right up to Greece and Italy, but the main relic - the right hand of Lusavorich - is kept in Etchmiadzin, symbolizing the spiritual shepherd of the supreme hierarch of the Apostolic Church.
After Tiridates not only baptized himself and proclaimed Christianity the state religion, he brought down persecution both on the Hellenistic cults and on Zoroastrianism: the idols were destroyed, their sanctuaries in the cities and regions of Armenia were overthrown, in particular, the pagans of the southern provinces of the kingdom were subjected to forced baptism . At the insistence of Gregory, the temple plots of the persecuted religions were everywhere transferred to the clergy in eternal and inalienable possession, exempted from any taxation, except for the land tax, which the priests contributed to the treasury. Churches and monasteries were built on the site of pagan temples. The emerging spiritual estate was equated (including in legal terms) with the military nobility - Azats and expanded its lands at the expense of not only the abolished sanctuaries of the ancestral gods, but also the confiscated inheritances of the disgraced and exterminated Nakharar houses.The throne of the Primate was established in Valarshapat, where s. Gregory built the cathedral, naming it in memory of the miraculous vision of Etchmiadzin shown to him ("Descent of the Only Begotten"). Under Gregory, the first dioceses appeared, the boundaries of which coincided with the specific principalities: the political dominance of the big nobility (the so-called nakharar system) was reflected in the fact that the bishops were initially associated not so much with certain departments (cities) as with individual powerful families. Part of the episcopate also came from the former priesthood (for example, known in the first decades of the Albian Apostolic Church): Lusavorich founded schools for children from priestly families, who, upon graduation, entered the ranks of the priesthood.
The Apostolic Church (one of the oldest among the existing ones), which, after the name of the founder Grigor Partev the Illuminator (Lusavorich), is also called the Gregorian Church, very quickly turned into a powerful force, not only spiritual, but also political and economic. It was headed by primates who were first ordained in Caesarea in Cappadocia. From the first years of its existence, it declared its zeal for the purity of dogma in the cruel persecution of the "immoral" (that is, leveling) heresies of the Borborites and Messalians (IV-V centuries). A significant role in the field was played by missionaries-chorebishops, who went with the name of Christ not only to the outskirts of the kingdom, but also beyond its borders. As one of the largest landowners, the archbishopric acted as a serious counterbalance to the royal throne and at the same time the regulator of social contradictions within the country and the inspirer of its defense against encroachments from outside, primarily from the Sasanian rulers.
Nevertheless, throughout the first century after the official adoption of the new religion, the positions of its hierarchy and ordinary confessors in the sociopolitical context of the Arshakid kingdom fluctuated noticeably: the fact that the IV century can be considered a sign of this instability. He also gave many martyrs, sometimes from among the higher clergy. Although under the rod of the three successors (essentially the heirs) of Gregory, Christianity outwardly triumphed in most of Armenia, retained influence and forces that did not recognize the spiritual authority and social influence of the Church. Particularly stubborn was the resistance of the Zoroastrian "party" among the nakharars, which Tiridates himself faced: in 330 he died, according to the chroniclers, poisoned by the courtiers for supporting the episcopal house of the Partevs.
St. Aristakes, having taken part in the Council of Nicaea in 325, where he went on behalf of Tiridates, and after the presentation of his father, ruled the flock for another 7 years. A severe ascetic, he repeatedly condemned the dissolute life of one of the local princes of Western Armenia, Archelaus, from whose hands he fell around 333 (buried in Tila). His successor brother Vrtanes (333-341) repeatedly avoided attempts on his life by the nakharars, who enjoyed the support of the Sassanids. In 338, "in the land of the Mazkuts," the eldest son, s. Vrtanes - St. Grigoris, who taught in the lower reaches of the Kura and Araks and was recognized as the first bishop of Albania. King Tyran II (339-350) was extremely intolerant of the power of the house of Grigorides-Partevs, who even ordered the execution of the next offspring of Vrtanes and brother of Grigoris, St. Iusica (341-347).
The inheritance law of the Grigorids was disputed by the descendants of Bishop Albian - Albianids during the IV century; adhering to the pro-Iranian orientation, they periodically replaced them on the episcopal throne, depending on the sympathies of the royal throne. At St. Nerses I the Great (353-373) held the I Local Council in Ashtishat (354), which decided to organize monasteries, schools and charitable institutions throughout Armenia and, having eradicated pagan customs, strengthen the morality of the people. In addition, he condemned Arianism and confirmed adherence to the Nicene Creed, and also awarded the archbishop the title of "Catholicos of Greater Armenia" (from the Greek "universal", remained in use until the XII century). The onslaught of Iran on Armenia especially intensified during the reign of Arshak II (350-367), with the participation of which Nerses I the Great convened the II Local Council in Valarshapat (366; according to another date, in 373/374, by decree of the next king - Pap) , where a decision was made to proclaim the autocephaly of the Catholicosate. Its heads were henceforth elected and consecrated in their own hierarchy with the consent of the sovereign, although the well-established ties with Caesarea remained in force for some time.
After a stubborn struggle caused by the unsuccessful Persian campaign of Emperor Julian the Apostate, Arshak was treacherously captured by Shahanshah Shapur II, who made several devastating campaigns in his possessions (364-368). Only the heir of Arshak, Pap (368-374), relying on Rome, defeated Shapur and in 371 forced him to recognize his rights and withdraw his troops from the country. After that, he challenged the power of the Church and set out to humble the recalcitrant nakharars, including by increasing the number of cavalry militia (up to 90 thousand people).
Emperor Valens, dissatisfied with the exorbitant strengthening of the Pap, organized his assassination and appointed his cousin Varazdat (374-380) as his successor, but he only continued the course of his predecessor. Then Rome and Iran used the growing dissatisfaction among the nakharars with the strengthening of the Arshakid throne. In 387, they divided Armenia among themselves along the line passing in the area of the city of Karin (now Turkish Erzurum).
In the western half of the state, which ceded to the Empire (in addition to Lesser Armenia, divided into two provinces under Theodosius) and also encompassing Sophena, the royal power of the Arshakids was abolished in 391, when it came under the control of a provincial governor, with a residence in Theodosiopolis (as henceforth called Karin). In addition, the Romans, on a contractual basis, retained several semi-independent satrapies in the southwest).
From the eastern half, which passed to Iran (Persarmenia in the Greek tradition, which accounted for about 3/4 of the territory of Greater Armenia), the Nakhangs of Artsakh and Utik stood out, which the Iranians transferred to the dependent kings of neighboring Albania (Armenian Aluank, Middle Persian Aran). In 415, Arsacid Khosrov IV abdicated the throne and Shahanshah Yazdegerd I endowed his son Shapur with royal dignity, who ruled until 421. The short interregnum that followed ended with the short-term restoration of Arsacid Artashes IV (423-428) on the throne, who was deposed by another son and the heir of Yazdegerd, Varahran V Gor.
The monarchy in "Persarmenia" was finished: from now on, a border governor (marzpan) with a residence in Dvin was appointed here on behalf of the shahanshah. Nevertheless, internal self-government was preserved: the leading positions were assigned to the nakharars, whose militia was a separate unit in the armed forces of the entire Sassanid state. In strategically important points, along with Iranian Armenian garrisons, they were placed, and the general leadership of them was entrusted to the commander-in-chief of the Armenian (sparapet) from the Mamikonyan family: in 432, Varahran V transferred this position to Vardan. The position of the bulk of the producers - communal peasants, and the status of the largest landowner - the Church, did not change significantly either.
Armenia at the end of the V - the first half of the VII century
In 490, with the assistance of marzpan Vakhan Mamikonyan, St. Gregory was ascended by Babgen, a disciple of Catholicoses Gyut Arahezatsi and Iovannes Mandakuni, a native of the village of Votmus of the Ayrarat gavar Vanand. If in 491 at the Valarshapat Council he signed Zenon's Enoticon, then already in 506 he convened another local Council in Dvin, where the nakharars, headed by Vakhan's successor, Vard Mamikonyan, and the clergy, as well as representatives of the Kartli and Western Syrian Church approved his "letter" directed against Nestorianism, and at the same time declared a resolute rejection of the Chalcedonian edition of the Creed. The corresponding decrees were translated not only into ancient Greek and Middle Persian, but also into Georgian and Albanian, and even Syriac. The Monophysites (Miafisites) of the Mesopotamian regions of the Sassanid state recognized them and asked Babgen to support them in their confrontation with the Church of the East, which since 484 was under the exclusive patronage of the Shahanshah's power.
The time of the Council turned out to be extremely successful for such a step: it was during these decades that the Sasanian court began to establish contacts with the Monophysite (Miafisite) communities of the Syro-Mesopotamian region, encouraging their opposition to the official Constantinople. OK. 508 Babgen Votmsetsi wrote a second epistle against the Nestorians, where he touched upon the reasons for the negative attitude towards Chalcedonian theology.
After the abolition of the "Enoticon" in 519, the Armenian Church returned to the issue of dogmatic "innovations" and at the Council of Dvina in 554/555, in which the Syrian Abdisho, a follower of Jacob Baradei, took an active part, finally rejected the definitions of Chalcedon and the "Tomos" of Pope Leo I Great. Then she received a special chronology (from July 11, 552). At the same time, the Catholicos of Armenia assumed the title of patriarch, equaling in status with the primates of the five main thrones of the Eastern Empire. Not the last role in this first break in church communion with Constantinople was played by pressure from Iran, which was interested in deepening the differences between the Armenians and Byzantium.
All this unfolded against the background of the intensive integration of the western half of the Armenian lands into the administrative structure of the Eastern Roman Empire. If the nakharar possessions (satrapies) in the south-west of the Armenian Highlands, annexed on a contractual basis at the end of the IV century, still enjoyed a certain autonomy, then in 536 Justinian I completely abolished their self-government. From now on, 4 provinces were established within the Roman borders: in the north - Armenia I, with a center in Theodosiopolis (Karin), in the west Armenia II, with a center in Sevastia (now Sivas), on the right bank of the Euphrates - Armenia III, with a center in Melitina (now Malatya ), on the left bank - Armenia IV.
After the split between the See of St. Gregory and the Patriarchate of Constantinople, a significant part of the Byzantine Armenians, having obeyed the decisions of the Council of Chalcedon, formed a large community of diaphysites. Nevertheless, the ethno-linguistic isolation of the Armenian Chalcedonites of Western Armenia led to the preservation of a special position for them, different from the Greek-speaking co-religionists. According to them, since the representatives of Valarshapat were absent from Chalcedon, they allowed the separation of their Church from the universal due to mostly random circumstances. That is why the Armenian Church never completely broke with Constantinople and even voluntarily strove for dogmatic reunification with it.
The attitude towards the Chalcedonian doctrine was in fact very ambiguous among the Armenians and was determined to a large extent by ecclesiastical and political considerations, primarily by irritation from the provision adopted in Chalcedon on the supremacy of the throne of Constantinople.
In the middle of the VI century Byzantine authorities launched persecution of the anti-Chalcedonites, which further alienated the Armenians from the Greeks, but soon the persecution gave way to attempts to peacefully overcome the split. When in 571 Persarmenia revolted against Shahanshah Khusrav (Khosrov) I Anoshagravan, Catholicos Ioannes II Prince Vardan Mamikonyan Karmir led an embassy to "New Rome", where they agreed on support from Justin II and confirmed church communion with the Romans. Under the emperor Mauritius, disputes with the Armenians were organized in the Byzantine capital, which, however, ended in vain: in 584 or 591, the III Dvinsky Council of the Armenian Church confirmed the decisions taken in 554/555 and again condemned the Chalcedonian creeds.
In the same 591, the situation was decisively influenced by the intervention of Mauritius in Persian affairs on the side of Khusraw II Aparvez; in gratitude, the shahanshah ceded to him all of Great Armenia to the west of the Dvin, where the emperor placed a special "Archon of Armenia". After this, the second partition of the country, Mauritius used the local population for the military colonization of Thrace. At the same time, he supported the establishment of a diophysite catholicosate in Avan in opposition to the catholicosate in Dvin, controlled by the Sassanids. Iovhannes of Bagaran (591-610) sat on his throne, whose authority was soon recognized by the flock and clergy not only of the Byzantine, but also of the Iranian part of Armenia.
With the beginning of the last Iranian-Byzantine war (602/603), Khusrav II, having occupied all the Armenian lands, abolished the Avan Catholicosate. The Kartli and Albanian Churches, which have long been in fraternal relations with the Armenian, in the VI century tended to adhere to one position on the issue of Chalcedon, but soon also experienced growing tension between the factions of the Byzantine and Iranian orientations, which was expressed, respectively, in support of the Diaphysite or Miathisite dogma. The apogee of this confrontation is associated with the name of Abraham, a native of the Vaspurakan village of Albatank and the bishop of his native gavar Rshtunik (southeast of Lake Van), whom the Dvina Cathedral in 606/607 elected as catholicos (until 610/615).
Shortly after his accession to the throne, Abraham demanded that Metropolitan Kirion I of Kartli (599-614/616) change the liturgical language from Georgian to Armenian. This, probably, should have been the first step towards the establishment of the Miafisite dogma in Kartli. The refusal led to the final split between the Armenian and Kartli Churches, which completed the long process of their independent development. Abraham Albatanetsi zealously supported the policy of Khusrav Aparvez, to whom he owed sole control over all Armenian communities after the liquidation of the Catholicosate in Avan. Abraham put the clergy subordinate to him before a choice - once again anathematize the Council of Chalcedon or leave the country.
The stormy controversy between the primates and the deepening of ecclesiastical decentralization resulted in an open rupture between the Catholicosates of Armenia and Kartli in 608/609, which followed the excommunication of Kirion and the repeated anathematization of the Chalcedonian dogma at the IV Dvina Council in 607. At the same time, contradictions on hierarchical grounds were growing between the Armenian and Albanian clerics.
However, Chalcedonism in Armenia was far from over. The Byzantine emperor Heraclius, in search of support against the Persians from the Christians of the East, sought to unite the supporters and opponents of Chalcedon. After a difficult victory over Khusrav, in which both Armenian and Kartli allies contributed, he won the glory of the liberator of the Life-Giving Cross (which he triumphantly returned to Jerusalem in 629). In an effort to dialogue with the Monophysites, starting from the definition of "a single action (energy) of Christ", the emperor sent a message to Valarshapat outlining the confession. There, Ezr, a native of the village of Parazhnakert in the Ayrarat gavar Nig, only entered the patriarchal throne.
At a meeting between the Catholicosate and the emperor in Theodosiopolis (Karin) around 630, they came to a general agreement, as a sign of which they took communion from one cup. Ezr Parazhnakertsi, a well-known theologian from his entourage - Theodoros Syunetsi - supported the invitation to reunite with Greek Orthodoxy, addressed by Heraclius to the Armenian episcopate. The so-called Karin Union actually restored church communion between the Romans and Armenians, whose bishops celebrated the Eucharist together, but caused opposition from part of the Ezra flock. The influential vardapet Iovannes accused the primate of conciliation and corruption, after which he, together with the Suni theologian Methuselah, wrote to Heraclius, putting forward a number of conditions for the recognition of Chalcedon. The question of complete church unity was thus removed from the agenda, but close rapprochement with Constantinople continued: Greek church customs even began to spread in Armenia (communion with leavened bread, the celebration of Christmas on December 25).
On the initiative of Heraclius c. 633 193 Armenian and Roman bishops gathered at the Council in Theodosiopolis/Karin. It is noteworthy that with the active use of Monothelitism as a basis for dialogue with the Syro-Egyptian Monophysites, this teaching was not discussed here. The reason, most likely, was that since the Armenians never maintained full canonical communion with the Jacobites, not recognizing the constructions of the leading Monophysite theologian of the North of Antioch, they, accordingly, had no idea about the concept of "one will", important for its followers. In Karin, there was no compromise between the Diaphysite and Monophysite denominations: in liturgical usage, the Council retained the addition of the key phrase “crucified for us” to the Trisagion and introduced the custom of mixing wine with water during the sacrament of the Eucharist.
Armenian sources unanimously assess what happened as the complete acceptance of the Chalcedonian dogma by their hierarchy, which predetermined its official religion until the end of the 7th century, but depending on their confessional sympathies they evaluate it differently. If the Miafisites (Sebeos, Iovannes Draskhanakaertsi, Asolik) present unity with Constantinople as being personally imposed on the Church by Ezr, then the Chalcedonites (Catholicos Arsen in the Narration, Pseudo-Photius in the Epistle) interpret it as a manifestation of the people's consent. Suffice it to note that after the death of Ezr in 641, his successor Nerses III convened a council that condemned the vardapet Iovhannes for resisting the Karin Union.
Ezr Perazhnakertsi died at a ripe old age and was buried in Dvin, having become famous as a generous benefactor and builder, under whom the restoration of the cathedral in Etchmiadzin and the temples of Hripsim and Gayan took place. His death coincided with the beginning of a series of social and political upheavals that befell Armenia and marked the onset of a new era and its dramatic history - the era of Arab domination.
Living in the Soviet Union and Russia, of course, since childhood I have been interested in history, including Armenia. Of course, I know about the ancient state of Urartuhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urartu, whose king Argishti was cursed by the Assyrian kings as an ardent enemy.
Later i was surprised that the historical tradition of the Armenians comes from the migration of the Brigs tribe, who first lived in Macedonia and who in Asia Minor began to be called Phrygians, or Mushki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mushki in Assyrian. The Phrygians, together with the Sea Peoples, destroyed the Hittite kingdom and settled the lands of Asia Minor, then they carried out further expansion to the east, but were stopped by Assyria.
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Ancient and Medieval Armenia occupied the Armenian Highlands, between the Asia Minor peninsula and the Iranian plateau, with its surrounding valleys. The snow-covered peak of Greater Ararat (Armenian Masis. 5165 m) divided the Highlands into Western Armenia and Eastern Armenia. Western Armenia, bounded from the north by the Pontic Range, and from the west by the course of the Kyzylyrmak River (Greek Halys), belonged to the upper reaches of the Euphrates (Armenian Prat), the region of Taronitida (Armenian Turuberan) - on the northwestern coast of Lake Van (Arm. Tosb) and in rocky gorges to the west of it, Sophena (Armenian Tsopk) - in the valley of the lower Muratchay (among the Greeks the Western Euphrates, Armenian Aratsani) and its tributaries with the mountains of Sasun, Arzanen (Aldznik) - between the ridge of the Eastern Taurus (Armenian . Npat) and the Tigris (Armenian Dklat), Basoropeda (Armenian Vaspurakan) - in the mountainous inter-lake area of Van and Urmia.
Eastern Armenia occupied the corresponding part of the highlands, which was limited from the north and east by the Lesser Caucasus, and from the south by the Kotur ridge and Lake Van. Its heart, the Ararat Valley, lies between the upper reaches of the Araks (Armenian Yeraskh) in the east and Lake Sevan in the west. The rest of the regions were grouped around it: in the north-west of Gogarenа (Armenian Gugark, later Pambak), in the south and east - respectively Syunia (Armenian Syunik, later Zangezur) and Orhisten (Armenian Artsakh, later Karabakh). Orkhistena-Artsakh was a zone of cultural interaction between Armenians and the Udins, the indigenous people of the region. In the far north, along the channels of the rivers Chorokh and its tributaries, at the transition of the uplands to the Black Sea lowlands, there were districts known to Armenians as Taik, and to Georgians as Tao, a zone of centuries-old interaction between Indo-Europeans and Western and Southern Caucasians.
Armenia before Tigranes II the Great
The richness of the Armenian highland in copper ores created favorable conditions for the emergence of one of the oldest centers of metallurgy here. Excavations of settlements in the vicinity of Etchmiadzin testify to the existence from the second half of the V millennium BC satisfied with advanced copper smelting technology.
The second half of the II millennium BC in the alpine regions, the bronze culture flourished, when numerous artistic metal products (vessels, jewelry, etc.) and red-clay ceramics with black geometric painting were created. At the peak of the improvement of the bronze industry, and especially during the transition to the Iron Age (late II - early I millennium BC), social differentiation was clearly manifested. The main ethnolinguistic communities here were the Eastern Caucasians (Hurri-Urartians and Nakho-Dagestanis), Proto-Kartvelians (Karts and Zans), and Anatolians (Hetto-Luvians and Palaians), who were later joined by the Aryans (Western and Northern Iranians). From the XIII century BC, when the Assyrians defeated the Hurrian state of Mitanni, the neighboring tribes united into large unions (Uruatri, Nairi, Dayani, etc.). In the wars with Assyria in the 890s - 880s BC the kingdom of Biaynili was born, as it is called in royal inscriptions in one of the North Caucasian languages, related to Hurrian, which became official for it. In parallel Akkadian versions, the equivalent of this horonym is Nairi, but in the area of the Sumerian-Akkadian civilization itself, this state is better known under the designation Urartu, from where the Old Testament "Country Ararat" comes from (IV Kings XIX: 37).
At the end of the IX - the first half of the VIII century BC Biaynili (for which the name "Kingdom of Van" was also fixed in Urartology) experienced a brilliant heyday. It developed its own high civilization. King Sarduri II (764-735 BC) ruled over most of the Armenian highlands, including the districts on the upper Euphrates, where Armenian dialects had already prevailed.
The mountainous region of the upper reaches of the rivers Euphrates, Kelkitchay and Kyzylyrmak is called in the Middle Hittite epigraphy (XVI-XV centuries BC) Armatan, and in the New Hittite (XIV-XIII centuries BC) - Hayasa. A decisive milestone in the formation of the proto-Armenian linguistic array is considered to be the settlement of the middle lands of the collapsed Biaynili by speakers of an isolated Indo-European language, remotely related to ancient Greek. In all likelihood, the people known to the Assyrians as the Urum, approximately from this area, in the XII century BC invaded the province of Shupria (southwest of Lake Van) and gave it its name - Urme, which, apparently, received the Hurrian toponymic Armenne ("country of Urme/Arme"). In the middle of the VIII century BC Shupria/Urme became part of Biaynili. The local population, presumably, adopted the ethnonym Mushki-Urumians and their language, which was layered on the Hurri-Urartian dialects of Western Armenia. Under the auspices of the military elite of the Armenians in the middle of the VI century BC early state formations were formed, within which, in complex interaction with neighboring and surrounding East Caucasian (Hurri-Urartians), Kartvelian (Saspirs), Anatolian (Hitto-Luvian) peoples, a new nationality was emerging. Among them stood out the Ervandid principality (Armenian Yervanduni), which recognized the supreme dominion of the Medes.
Armenian tribes that scattered from the upper reaches of the river Galis to the districts of Matiena (Urmian basin), took part in the defeat of the New Assyrian Empire. It is not for nothing that the books of the Prophets mention in the same row "the kingdoms of Ararat, Minya and Askenaz" and "the peoples, the kings of Media, its governors and all its city rulers, and all the land subject to it" (Jer LI: 28). Vague echoes of these events can be found in the first ancient Armenian chronicles. So, Moses of Khoren (Movses Khorenatsi) tells about Prince Paruyr, the son of Skyordi, who helped Media in the conquest of Nineveh.
In 521-520 BC after fierce resistance, Armenia submitted to the Achaemenids, in the epigraphy of which for the first time its name is found, which later became the main language in all languages of the region, with the exception of Armenian and Georgian itself. In the trilingual Behistun inscription of Darayavahush (Darius I the Great; last quarter of the VI century BC), the Elamite and Old Persian columns mention the country of Arminа, whose synonym in the Akkadian column is Urartu. A star-shaped Babylonian world map of the V century BC carved on a clay slab also indicates "Armenia" among the six regions that correspond to the cardinal points. In the "History" of Herodotus, the lands of the "rich cattle" Armenians are included in the XIII and XVIII taxable districts (satrapies) of the Persian state. Even later, Xenophon finds "Armenia, a vast and rich country", under the rule of the Orontides family (Armenian Yervandakan), who, having intermarried with the Achaemenids, ruled hereditarily with the dynastic name Orontes (Armenian Evrand).
In the second half of the I millennium BC, apparently, as a result of mutual influence and mixing of Armenians with Iranian (Cimmerians, Scythians, Medes), Semitic (Arameans, Jews, Assyro-Babylonians) and other ethnic groups, the Armenian people were formed with their own ethnonym and ethnic territory. At the same time, the exoethnonym, derived from the name of Arme/Urme - Arminа, turned out to be opposed to the endoethnonym Hayk and the name of the country itself in the language of Hay Armenians - Hayk (later Hayastan), which, according to a controversial, but most likely of the existing hypotheses, goes back to the noun Hittite (through hypothetically reconstructed protoform of hatios). The historical tradition associated with the Biayn great power, apparently, was completely interrupted.
The Proto-Armenian language is the result of a deep interpenetration of the Paleo-Balkan adstratum with the Hurri-Urartian substrate, which influenced, first of all, its phonetics and vocabulary, especially related to the surrounding nature and landscape. He was also subjected to the strongest influence of Western Iranian languages. Iranian domination from the end of the VI century BC left a noticeable imprint on almost all aspects of the material (craft and architecture) and especially spiritual (language, power ideas, chronology) culture of the emerging Armenian ethnos. Thus, the lunisolar calendar was used by the Armenians for almost two millennia (from the middle of the V century BC to the beginning of the XIV century AD). Under the Achaemenids, life resumed or continued in the settlements of Tushpa and Erebuni. In the IV century BC on the ruins of Argishtikhinili, a new city of Armavir grew up, which was destined to turn into a pan-Armenian capital.
In 331 BC Alexander the Great at Gaugamela defeated the Persian army, in the ranks of which fought a large militia put up by the Orontids (40 thousand infantry and 7 thousand mounted). After that, the satraps of Armenia Yervand III and Mifravst founded two semi-independent kingdoms. The first of them initially recognized the supremacy of Alexander, but when strife broke out between his successors - the diadochs, in 316 BC separate from the Macedonians. In addition, independence in 322 BC found Lesser Armenia with its capital in Ani Daranali (now Kamakh, near the Turkish Erzinjan) - the ancient land of Hayasa. From the north it was separated from Pontus by the mountains of Skidis and Pariadra, from the south from Syria and Cilicia by Taurus, from the west from Cappadocia by the spurs of Antitaurus. In the east, the Euphrates served as its border with Sophena in the interfluve of the Western Euphrates (now Karasu) and the Western Tigris, which the Biayns knew as Tsopani. Here in 223 BC a separate possession arose, where Zariadr ruled, subordinate as a governor-strategist to the most powerful of the Diadochi dynasty - the Seleucids, whose crown province was Syria.
In 220 BC the Seleucid monarch Antiochus III the Great annexed the Orontid possessions to Central and Southern Armenia, which he already controlled. Thus, by the end of the century, under the name of "Great Armenia" for the first time, a large part of the Armenian Highlands was united. The boundaries of Greater Armenia were: from the west - the Euphrates (separating it from Lesser Armenia), from the north the Koron mountains and the river Chorokh (from Colchis and Iberia), from the east the Araks and the Azerbaijani plateau, from the south - the Eastern Taurus (Nifat) and the Tigris (from Assyria and Mesopotamia). Beginning at the turn of the III-II centuries BC here, as a strategist on behalf of Antiochus III, the local ruler Artaxias (Artakhshasi) ruled. When Antiochus was defeated by the Romans at Magnesia (190 BC), both Greater Armenia and Sophene regained their independence. Artaxius and Zariatrius (known to later Armenian tradition as Artashes and Zarekh) placed royal crowns on their heads. This was facilitated by the steady weakening of the Seleucid power, largely due to the birth of a new force in the East - Parthia, which from the middle of the III century. BC. the family of Arshak ruled invariably.
Artakhshasi (Artashes I, 189 - c. 160 BC) actively intervened in the affairs of the neighboring principalities of Iran and Asia Minor and in every possible way contributed to the collapse of the Seleucid kingdom, thanks to which he was able to unite the main regions between the Caspian and Black Sea coasts under his scepter. In 176 BC he erected a new capital - Artaxata (arm. Artashat), guided by the advice of Hannibal, who, after the collapse of Antiochus the Great, went to his service. The city inherited from Armavir a favorable location on the international trade routes in the bend of the Araks. In 165 BC Artakhshasi's success was reinforced by the battle with the troops of Antiochus IV Epiphanes on the Tigris. The first agrarian reforms in the history of Armenia, which are believed to have strengthened small-scale agriculture in the country, are also associated with his name.
Armenian kingdom between Iran and Rome
The heirs of Artashes - the Artashesids - were to occupy the throne for more than a century and a half. They reached the pinnacle of power under his grandson Tigranes II the Great (95-56/5 BC), who completed the unification of the countries of the Armenian Highlands. In the first years of his reign, he subjugated Sophene (94 BC) in the west, Atropatena and western Media in the east, and imposed his supremacy on the rulers of Cappadocia, Alvania and Iveria, reaching the Caspian Sea in campaigns. Only Lesser Armenia remained apart, which at the end of the II century BC passed into the hands of the Pontic kingdom of Mithridates VI Eupator, who built more than 70 fortified castles there. Having concluded a military-political alliance and intermarried with him, Tigranes II in 83 BC put Seleucid Syria under his control with its Hellenistic metropolis of Antioch-on-Orontes, which he turned into one of his capitals. His expansion thus affected the Mediterranean, where he laid hands on the plains of Cilicia and Phoenicia as far as Palestine. In the south, Commagene and part of Mesopotamia with Adiabene, which he recaptured from the Parthians, submitted to him.
Due to the unprecedented expansion of the boundaries of the Armenian state, Artaxata (Artashat), which remained in its extreme northeastern part, could no longer fulfill the functions of the capital. The throne henceforth moved to Tigranakert, which grew in 77 BC also at the crossroads of caravan routes on the banks of a tributary of the Tigris (near present Silvan in Turkey). Possessing rich cultural centers and the most important trade routes from the Mediterranean to the East, Great Armenia briefly turned into the most extensive state of the Hellenistic world, but the economic diversity, ethnic diversity, and separatism of the outskirts made it internally fragile.
As an ally of the sworn enemy of the Roman Republic - Mithridates VI Eupator, after his defeat, Tigranes came face to face with the threat of losing his positions in Asia Minor. In 69 BC the legions of Lucullus invaded the borders of Armenia, who, after a short siege, captured Tigranakert, plundered and destroyed it to the ground, but failed in an attempt to capture Artaxata. In 66 BC, when Pompey's army set out to repeat this attempt, Tigranes chose not to risk it and came unarmed to the camp of the conquerors with an expression of humility. At the cost of losing almost everything previously captured in the west (Syria, Phoenicia, Eastern Cilicia), he was able to keep under his rule, with the title of "king of kings", Great Armenia proper, as a "friend and ally of the Roman people."
In the middle of the I c. BC on the territory of the Armenian Highlands, a fierce confrontation unfolded between Rome and Parthia. Armenia Minor on the right bank of the Euphrates became the initial bridgehead of the Republic on the highlands, which, after the death of Mithridates Eupator, in 62 BC, the Romans entrusted to the dependent king of Galatia, Deiotar, and after the death of his son, for a long time, were transferred to various semi-independent rulers. Under the control of the Republic, its borders repeatedly changed, and from time to time it fell under the rule of the sovereigns of the Great Armenia.
The son and heir of Tigranes II, Artavazd II (56/55-34 BC), not only evaded the supply of military contingents promised by his father for the Artashat peace, but also, in alliance with the Parthian Arsacids, openly opposed the shattered Roman dominion. Taking advantage of the fact that in May 53 BC the Parthian commander Surena defeated the triumvir Crassus at Carrah, who fell on the battlefield with most of the soldiers, Artavazd won back Sophena and Lesser Armenia, which they had previously captured from the Romans. In 51 BC he sent his commander Barzafarn, together with the Arshakid prince Pacorus, to Syria. by 40 BC Pacorus and Barzafarn took possession of almost the entire Eastern Mediterranean, creating the threat of a breakthrough into Egypt and the Balkans. In 39 BC Mark Antony sent here his best legate, Ventilius Bassus, who defeated the Parthians at Antioch. This forced Artavazd to once again recognize his dependence on the Republic, but in 37 BC. he refused to participate in the campaign against Parthia, which was prepared by Anthony, who arrived in the East.
In 36 BC the Parthian expedition began, which, after a series of sensitive failures, ended up in 34 BC redirected against Armenia and led to the capture of Artavazd: Antony, under the pretext of negotiations, lured him to his camp and sent him to Alexandria, where he, clad in golden chains, appeared before the Egyptian queen Cleopatra. In 31 BC the Armenian king, who gained fame among his fellow tribesmen as a playwright and historian who was fond of Hellenic philosophy, was beheaded for refusing to turn his face to Cleopatra as a sign of humility during a triumphal procession. Although the son of Artavazd, Artashes II (34-29 BC) restored the independence of Armenia, his brother Tigran III was already a protege of the Roman Empire, where his accession was marked by minting coins with the legend Armenia capta ("Armenia captive").
In 1 AD the dynasty of Artaxiads (Artashesids) fell, and until the middle of the I century. AD a total of about a dozen crowned kings reigned - puppets of the two great powers of Late Antique Asia Minor, as a rule, the offspring of the ruling families of neighboring countries. The turning point came in 52 AD, when the Parthian sovereign Valakhsh I declared his brother Tiridates (Armenian Trdat) the king of Armenia, which caused a protracted war with the Empire. Its decisive phase came in 58-59, when the legions of Corbulo destroyed Artashat, fearing not to hold it, and occupied Tigranakert, where in 60 they enthroned Tigranes VI.
In 61, Valakhsh again moved his troops into the Armenian lands and forced Corbulo to retreat. The confrontation temporarily stopped the Rhandeian Agreement of 62: Tiridates I (63-80) was approved on the Armenian throne, who nevertheless pledged to receive the crown in Rome from the hands of Emperor Nero. An ardent admirer of the Avesta, the new sovereign traveled to the Eternal City in 65 by land, so as not to defile the water element, sacred to the Zoroastrians. The Romans celebrated this purely formal expression of humility by issuing a special series of coins with the legend Armenia recepta ("Armenia taken"). Nero, who arranged the coronation ceremony of Tiridates with magnificent festivities, even provided him with funds, builders and artisans for the restoration of Artashat (66).
Tiridates thus became the first of the Armenian Arsacids, but not the ancestor of a special branch of this dynasty. Until the middle of the II century. the throne of Armenia, which was considered the second most important after the Parthian, was occupied by the younger representatives of the main line of the Arshakid family, who sometimes even went to recognize obedience to Rome. The rivalry between the two powers did not subside, and Greater Armenia, conditionally considered as independent, remained a buffer zone. Lesser Armenia was included in the province of Cappadocia in 72 by Emperor Vespasian, and it remained under the direct control of the Roman-Byzantine administration for more than a millennium.
In 113, the Emperor Trajan again launched hostilities against Parthia and in 114, having seized the lands of the Armenians, divided them between the provinces of Cappadocia, Greater and Lesser Armenia. However, a few years later, his successor Adrian (117-138) preferred to withdraw the legions beyond the Euphrates and restore the kingdom here under the scepter of Valarsh I (117-140), who, moreover, became the first Armenian Arsacid who inherited his throne. When, during the next Parthian war (163-166), the Romans occupied Artashat for the second time, they also considered it expedient to preserve the independence of Armenia. Then, in the second half of the II century. AD, its capital was Valarshapat, founded on the site of the village of Vardkesavan (existed from the II century BC). The Arshakid sovereigns were even able to include Sofena in their inheritance, where they kept treasures in the Bnabel castle.
The economy of Greater Armenia was based on agriculture, where, along with the communal villagers (shinakan) and sharecroppers, slaves were employed. In large cities involved in large-scale transit trade, which, along with Artashat, Tigranakert and Armavir, included Valarshapat, Yervandashat, Arshamashat and others, there was further progress in metallurgy, pottery, stone-cutting and carpentry, the manufacture of household utensils, leather, weaving and jewelry, construction, artistic crafts (silver bowls and rhytons, fragments of sculpture, mosaics). Around the agglomerations there were estates - agaraks and dastakerts. Close cross-cultural contacts with Hellas, Asia Minor and Syria left a noticeable Hellenistic imprint on the material culture of Armenia. It is evident in architecture - in urban planning (Artashat) and in the types of structures (the amphitheater in Tigranakert, the last centuries BC - the first centuries AD and the Garni complex, I-III centuries), sculpture (statue of Aphrodite from Artashat , end of II - beginning of I century BC), as well as numismatics and epigraphy (the use of Greek Koine). There is also indirect evidence of the penetration of ancient Greek theatrical traditions into the country. Despite the significant Iranian influence, which increased under Parthian rule, it was Hellenism, rooted in the historical core of Armenia, that made possible its early Christianization. Hellenization affected the elite to the greatest extent; the common people rather remained faithful to the original culture of the Middle Asian type. The religion of Armenia was also syncretic: along with the most ancient deities, whose cult dates back to the Biayn times, there were both Iranian-Aryan and Hellenic beliefs.
In the sources there are references to the Armenian epic, oral art - both common folk and belonging to gusan singers and vipasana storytellers. Conditionally reconstructed according to the data, first of all, of Movses Khorenatsi, the epic cycle of Vipasank included several epic stories, the heroes of which, in addition to the already mentioned Hayk and Ara, were Tigran and Azhdahak, Artashes and Satinik, who had historical prototypes. The most archaic images include the brave serpent fighter (vishapakah) Vahagn, who personified the triumph of the solar principle over the chthonic elements. This is how he is described in one fragment of Armenian folklore that has come down to us.
The sky was tormented by childbirth,
the sky was tormented by childbirth,
the crimson sea was tormented by childbirth.
Birthing pains seized
In the sea and a reed reed.
Smoke came out of the reeds
The flames came out of the reeds.
And a fair-haired youth jumped out of the flame.
His curls were on fire
And the beard was on fire
The eyes were - the sun!
Only fragmentary information has been preserved about the pre-Christian writing of the Armenians. It is known about the existence of palace chronicles, "temple books", collections of legends, etc. under the Artashesid and Arshakid kings. The first generation of Armenian authors report the destruction of pagan writings and the banning of theatrical performances in the decades following the christening of the country. Over time, worship in the Armenian Apostolic Church became brightly musical and theatrical; on holidays, mysteries were played, which became an organic part of the Armenian church culture.
The strengthening of contacts with Parthia contributed to the further Iranianization of the socio-political system, language, religion and culture of Armenia. It is no coincidence that the Armenian dynastic tradition, ancientizing the ties of its country with the Arshakid house, built a line of succession of supreme power, connecting the Artashesids with the Arshakids as the descendants of the Parthian Valarshak, the brother of Arshak the Great, whom he allegedly sent to replace the royal throne at the request of the Armenians themselves. The same Valarshak appears as the unifier of the Armenian lands, who put an end to the rule of the Zarekh family in Lesser Armenia by killing his son Morpulikes. At the same time, the desire of the Armenian elite to protect themselves from the encroachments of the Parthian Arshakids in the first centuries AD. pushed its representatives - the relatively weak royal throne and the strengthened regional rulers - nakharars - to rapprochement with Rome.
Thus, the system of "political dualism in the Middle East" (the expression of A.A. Bokshchanin), which took shape in the I century BC - I century AD, meant for Armenia the starting point in a thousand-year period of compromise and maneuvering between the largest hegemonic states of the West (Greco-Roman Mediterranean) and East (Iranian-Semitic Asia Minor). The conditions for this maneuvering became even more complicated when, at the beginning of the III century. The Sassanids seized the supreme power in Iran. The Persian shah Ardakhshir Papakan (Greek Artaxerxes) overthrew and destroyed the Parthian royal house in the person of Artaban V. In Armenia, where the Arshakids retained the throne, Khosrov I the Great (217-238) waged protracted wars with him in revenge for his kinsman, but was treacherously murdered at his instigation. In the second half of the century, the Armenian kingdom fell into direct dependence on the offspring of Ardakhshir.
Christian Armenia
In the III-IV centuries further changes were taking place in the structure of the Armenian society. The communal-shinakans and the slaves (erdumards) planted on the land gradually merged into a single group of dependent peasants-ramiks. By the IV century the growth of large landownership led to the fact that one area (nahang) Ayrarat was "royal", and the rest belonged on a hereditary basis to the princes-nakharars, whose relationship with the throne was very contradictory. Under these conditions, the monotheistic religion naturally seemed to be an important tool for strengthening the authority of the Arshakid sovereign as opposed to local cults and Zoroastrian beliefs, which were patronized by Sasanian Iran.
Data on the pre-Christian religion of the Armenians have been preserved in two groups of sources: ancient authors (Strabo, Pliny, Diodorus, Plutarch, Dio Cassius) mainly report on temples and statues of deities, Armenian chroniclers of the V-VI centuries. (Agatangelos, Pavstos, Movses, Elisha, Lazar, Eznik) focus on beliefs and local cults. The prevalence of chthonic rituals is evidenced by the frequency of statues of "vishaps" - huge stone fish. The earliest layer is ideas about deified heroes associated with a mixed Hurri-Urartian and Thraco-Phrygian environment - the warrior Torke (Hurrian Tarhu), the progenitor Hayk, who struck the hostile Bel with an arrow - the personification of the Assyrian-Babylonian threat, and his descendant Arai the Beautiful, symbolizing dying and resurrecting nature. However, this layer turned out to be early and densely blocked by the cult-religious practice of Aryan (more precisely, Indo-Iranian) origin, which settled in the highlands under the progressive influence of neighboring Iran, starting from the Median times, and only strengthened under the Achaemenid domination. Its basis was a local form of Mazdaism.
For centuries, the Armenians have revered Aramazd (the Parthian form of the name Ahura Mazda), the "father of all gods", "creator of heaven and earth", "producer of abundance and fertility", "great and courageous", "powerful", whose main temple was located in the fortress of Ani-Kamakh, where the Arshakid kings were buried. The daughter of Aramazd was considered to be Anahit (Avest. Ardvi-Sura Anahita, Middle Persian Anahid) - "the mother of all knowledge", and the son of Mher (Avest. Mitra, Middle Persian Mihr), whose sanctuaries were scattered throughout the country. As the patroness of earthly fertility, Spendarmet (Avest. Spenta-Armaiti; Middle Persian Spandarmad) was revered. The temples of the brave dragon slayer Vahagn (Avest. Veretragna; Middle Persian Varahran) were surrounded with special love, about whom many songs and legends were transmitted. The names of the Avestan celestials Khaurvatat and Amertat are reflected in the name of the havrot-mavrot flower.
In the Hellenistic era, the Medo-Parthian gods were identified with the Olympian ones: Aramazd with Zeus, Anahit with Artemis, Vahagn with Hercules, Mihr with Helios. The question of the time of the penetration of Zoroastrianism into the Armenian lands is debatable, the only thing that is indisputable is that the first temples of fire appeared under the Achaemenids, as evidenced by the excavations of Erebuni. However, it is possible to speak about the acceptance of the Zoroastrian religion by the Armenian society in the proper sense of the word only with the accession of the Arshakids, under whom it had an official status.
The impact of Aryan ideas on the demonology of the Armenians was enormous, which developed superstitions regarding harmful animals and insects: snakes, scorpions, frogs, ants (the very ones that Zoroastrianism considers as creations of an evil principle - Ankhra Mainyu). They were well aware of the demonic beings of the male (devas) and female (wig) sex. The designations of a number of supernatural beings, such as angels (khreshtak), are also of Indo-Iranian origin.
The initial center of Christianity in the Armenian Highlands was, apparently, Lesser Armenia, where communities, where communities professing the Gospel, most likely appeared in the II century: the New Testament and Hagiographic tradition links the enlightenment of Armenians, naturally, with the apostolic age. Christ's teaching, apparently, penetrated through Edessa and through Cappadocia, which was reflected, in particular, in the terminology borrowed from both the Syrians and the Greeks, and some Greek terms ("bishop", "synod", "heretic ", etc.) could come to the Armenian language through Syriac, where they managed to take root. Data on the religious situation in Armenia before the beginning of the IV c. are extremely scarce: the list of the first seven bishops is restored on the basis of the epic-hagiographic codes of Agatangelos and Buzandaran and the chronological list of the middle of the VII century.
The Gregorian church-historical tradition connects the initial steps of the gospel sermon with a legend that goes back to the Syrian tradition about the Apostle Thaddeus (Sir. Addai). Arriving in Edessa to the court of the king of Osroena Abgar, who asked Christ for a cure, Thaddeus baptized him and his family and brought the good news to the townspeople, among whom he later died, surrounded by reverent reverence. In a somewhat modified form, the same tradition reproduces the "Church History" of Eusebius (Eusebius) Pamphilus of Caesarea, from its pages it, apparently, stepped into the Armenian environment, where it received further development, designed to explain the epithet "Apostolic", which applies to own Church of St. Grigor.
Ancient Armenian translation of the legend (attested already in the V century BC)) represents Abgar of Edessa as an Armenian and has a continuation in which the apostle departs from him to Greater Armenia, to the court of his relative, King Sanatruk. Here, having baptized Princess Sandukht and many other persons, Thaddeus undergoes a painful execution in the area of Shavarshavan (gavar Artaz). According to one version, before his death, he manages to meet on the Artashat hill with another apostle - Bartholomew, who came to the Armenian lands after wandering around Persia and India, and, for turning to Christ, Voguhi, the sister of Sanatruk, and many nobles also receives a martyr's crown.
A more objective indicator of the presence of Christians in Armenia at the turn of II-III centuries. serve as indirect indications of ancient sources. In a quotation from the Acts of the Apostles (Acts II: 9), conducted by Tertullian, Armenia is mentioned among the countries whose languages were spoken by the apostles after Pentecost (tractate "Against the Jews", 197) Tertullian (VII). A century later, Eusebius Pamphilus in his "Church History" mentions the local bishop Meruzhan, to whom the Bishop of Alexandria Dionysius I the Great addressed (c. 251-255) his admonition about the "fallen" - those who renounced Christ during the persecution.
The rapid Christianization of the Roman East paved the way for the further success of the new religion in the Arshakid dominions. At the end of the III century. the Romans, who under Diocletian again singled out Lesser Armenia as an independent province, launched an onslaught in the direction of Greater Armenia, where in 286/287 they helped Tiridates IV ascend the throne of their ancestors. However, his position in Valarshapat remained unstable until 297, when the Empire imposed the Treaty of Nisibin on Iran, which marked the weakening of the Sasanian influence on Armenia and its further rapprochement with Rome. The attitude of the Roman and, accordingly, the Armenian authorities towards the worshipers of the Crucified had yet to undergo sensitive fluctuations, but the strengthening of the political role of Christianity had already become irreversible. Evidence of this is the remark made by Eusebius when talking about the unsuccessful war of the emperor Maximian with the Armenians (312/313): "People who have long been friends and allies of Rome, moreover, Christians, and zealous Christians, this theomachist tried to force to sacrifice to idols and demons .
The key figure in the history of the baptism of Armenia was called to be Tiridates IV, later nicknamed the Great, whose reign was opened by a strong persecution of Christians. Their peaceful resistance was inspired by another man whose origin and childhood are covered with numerous and conflicting legends. Gregory (Armenian Grigor) is called the "Second Illuminator" (after Thaddeus and Bartholomew) or simply the "Illuminator" (Armenian Lusavorich). According to the unanimous statement of the Armenian chroniclers, he was born (most likely around 239) into a family belonging to the Parthian royal family; this is also indicated by the fact that his descendants are Grigorides up to the beginning of the V century. were nicknamed Partev ("Parthian"). He spent his youth in Caesarea Cappadocia, where he married the Christian Mary (according to another version, Julitta), who gave him two sons - Aristakes and Vrtanes. After three years of family life, the couple parted by mutual agreement, and Mary retired to a monastery with her youngest child, who, having reached the age of majority, was educated in his native Caesarea, then followed the hermit Nicomachus, and later took the priesthood, as for the eldest, he remained a layman.
The existing dates for the baptism received by the Armenian king and people from Grigor Lusavorich fluctuate between 284 and 314: of these, 301 was accepted by the Apostolic Church, but 314 is more consistent with the data of Greco-Roman sources and correlates with the impact that had on Armenia Empire. Shortly before that, according to legend, Tiridates, stricken with a serious illness, released Artashat Gregory from prison, whom he had previously tortured and fifteen years in prison for preaching the good news. Soon, at the local Council in Caesarea, the recent prisoner was ordained to the hierarchal rank by Bishop Leontius of Cappadocia. Thus, the beginning of the procedure was laid, according to which each newly elected primate of the Armenian Church received consecration from the Archbishop of Caesarea.
Concerned about making the dignity hereditary among his own descendants, Gregory, during his lifetime (about 315), appointed Aristakes as his successor, who, at the call of an elderly parent, refused hermitage, accepted the episcopal dignity and helped him in the leadership of believers. Around 320, the Illuminator, leaving him the chair, himself went to the cave desert of Mane, from where he returned to the world only from time to time. His relics, found in 325/6 by local shepherds, spread throughout the Christian world right up to Greece and Italy, but the main relic - the right hand of Lusavorich - is kept in Etchmiadzin, symbolizing the spiritual shepherd of the supreme hierarch of the Apostolic Church.
After Tiridates not only baptized himself and proclaimed Christianity the state religion, he brought down persecution both on the Hellenistic cults and on Zoroastrianism: the idols were destroyed, their sanctuaries in the cities and regions of Armenia were overthrown, in particular, the pagans of the southern provinces of the kingdom were subjected to forced baptism . At the insistence of Gregory, the temple plots of the persecuted religions were everywhere transferred to the clergy in eternal and inalienable possession, exempted from any taxation, except for the land tax, which the priests contributed to the treasury. Churches and monasteries were built on the site of pagan temples. The emerging spiritual estate was equated (including in legal terms) with the military nobility - Azats and expanded its lands at the expense of not only the abolished sanctuaries of the ancestral gods, but also the confiscated inheritances of the disgraced and exterminated Nakharar houses.The throne of the Primate was established in Valarshapat, where s. Gregory built the cathedral, naming it in memory of the miraculous vision of Etchmiadzin shown to him ("Descent of the Only Begotten"). Under Gregory, the first dioceses appeared, the boundaries of which coincided with the specific principalities: the political dominance of the big nobility (the so-called nakharar system) was reflected in the fact that the bishops were initially associated not so much with certain departments (cities) as with individual powerful families. Part of the episcopate also came from the former priesthood (for example, known in the first decades of the Albian Apostolic Church): Lusavorich founded schools for children from priestly families, who, upon graduation, entered the ranks of the priesthood.
The Apostolic Church (one of the oldest among the existing ones), which, after the name of the founder Grigor Partev the Illuminator (Lusavorich), is also called the Gregorian Church, very quickly turned into a powerful force, not only spiritual, but also political and economic. It was headed by primates who were first ordained in Caesarea in Cappadocia. From the first years of its existence, it declared its zeal for the purity of dogma in the cruel persecution of the "immoral" (that is, leveling) heresies of the Borborites and Messalians (IV-V centuries). A significant role in the field was played by missionaries-chorebishops, who went with the name of Christ not only to the outskirts of the kingdom, but also beyond its borders. As one of the largest landowners, the archbishopric acted as a serious counterbalance to the royal throne and at the same time the regulator of social contradictions within the country and the inspirer of its defense against encroachments from outside, primarily from the Sasanian rulers.
Nevertheless, throughout the first century after the official adoption of the new religion, the positions of its hierarchy and ordinary confessors in the sociopolitical context of the Arshakid kingdom fluctuated noticeably: the fact that the IV century can be considered a sign of this instability. He also gave many martyrs, sometimes from among the higher clergy. Although under the rod of the three successors (essentially the heirs) of Gregory, Christianity outwardly triumphed in most of Armenia, retained influence and forces that did not recognize the spiritual authority and social influence of the Church. Particularly stubborn was the resistance of the Zoroastrian "party" among the nakharars, which Tiridates himself faced: in 330 he died, according to the chroniclers, poisoned by the courtiers for supporting the episcopal house of the Partevs.
St. Aristakes, having taken part in the Council of Nicaea in 325, where he went on behalf of Tiridates, and after the presentation of his father, ruled the flock for another 7 years. A severe ascetic, he repeatedly condemned the dissolute life of one of the local princes of Western Armenia, Archelaus, from whose hands he fell around 333 (buried in Tila). His successor brother Vrtanes (333-341) repeatedly avoided attempts on his life by the nakharars, who enjoyed the support of the Sassanids. In 338, "in the land of the Mazkuts," the eldest son, s. Vrtanes - St. Grigoris, who taught in the lower reaches of the Kura and Araks and was recognized as the first bishop of Albania. King Tyran II (339-350) was extremely intolerant of the power of the house of Grigorides-Partevs, who even ordered the execution of the next offspring of Vrtanes and brother of Grigoris, St. Iusica (341-347).
The inheritance law of the Grigorids was disputed by the descendants of Bishop Albian - Albianids during the IV century; adhering to the pro-Iranian orientation, they periodically replaced them on the episcopal throne, depending on the sympathies of the royal throne. At St. Nerses I the Great (353-373) held the I Local Council in Ashtishat (354), which decided to organize monasteries, schools and charitable institutions throughout Armenia and, having eradicated pagan customs, strengthen the morality of the people. In addition, he condemned Arianism and confirmed adherence to the Nicene Creed, and also awarded the archbishop the title of "Catholicos of Greater Armenia" (from the Greek "universal", remained in use until the XII century). The onslaught of Iran on Armenia especially intensified during the reign of Arshak II (350-367), with the participation of which Nerses I the Great convened the II Local Council in Valarshapat (366; according to another date, in 373/374, by decree of the next king - Pap) , where a decision was made to proclaim the autocephaly of the Catholicosate. Its heads were henceforth elected and consecrated in their own hierarchy with the consent of the sovereign, although the well-established ties with Caesarea remained in force for some time.
After a stubborn struggle caused by the unsuccessful Persian campaign of Emperor Julian the Apostate, Arshak was treacherously captured by Shahanshah Shapur II, who made several devastating campaigns in his possessions (364-368). Only the heir of Arshak, Pap (368-374), relying on Rome, defeated Shapur and in 371 forced him to recognize his rights and withdraw his troops from the country. After that, he challenged the power of the Church and set out to humble the recalcitrant nakharars, including by increasing the number of cavalry militia (up to 90 thousand people).
Emperor Valens, dissatisfied with the exorbitant strengthening of the Pap, organized his assassination and appointed his cousin Varazdat (374-380) as his successor, but he only continued the course of his predecessor. Then Rome and Iran used the growing dissatisfaction among the nakharars with the strengthening of the Arshakid throne. In 387, they divided Armenia among themselves along the line passing in the area of the city of Karin (now Turkish Erzurum).
In the western half of the state, which ceded to the Empire (in addition to Lesser Armenia, divided into two provinces under Theodosius) and also encompassing Sophena, the royal power of the Arshakids was abolished in 391, when it came under the control of a provincial governor, with a residence in Theodosiopolis (as henceforth called Karin). In addition, the Romans, on a contractual basis, retained several semi-independent satrapies in the southwest).
From the eastern half, which passed to Iran (Persarmenia in the Greek tradition, which accounted for about 3/4 of the territory of Greater Armenia), the Nakhangs of Artsakh and Utik stood out, which the Iranians transferred to the dependent kings of neighboring Albania (Armenian Aluank, Middle Persian Aran). In 415, Arsacid Khosrov IV abdicated the throne and Shahanshah Yazdegerd I endowed his son Shapur with royal dignity, who ruled until 421. The short interregnum that followed ended with the short-term restoration of Arsacid Artashes IV (423-428) on the throne, who was deposed by another son and the heir of Yazdegerd, Varahran V Gor.
The monarchy in "Persarmenia" was finished: from now on, a border governor (marzpan) with a residence in Dvin was appointed here on behalf of the shahanshah. Nevertheless, internal self-government was preserved: the leading positions were assigned to the nakharars, whose militia was a separate unit in the armed forces of the entire Sassanid state. In strategically important points, along with Iranian Armenian garrisons, they were placed, and the general leadership of them was entrusted to the commander-in-chief of the Armenian (sparapet) from the Mamikonyan family: in 432, Varahran V transferred this position to Vardan. The position of the bulk of the producers - communal peasants, and the status of the largest landowner - the Church, did not change significantly either.
Armenia at the end of the V - the first half of the VII century
In 490, with the assistance of marzpan Vakhan Mamikonyan, St. Gregory was ascended by Babgen, a disciple of Catholicoses Gyut Arahezatsi and Iovannes Mandakuni, a native of the village of Votmus of the Ayrarat gavar Vanand. If in 491 at the Valarshapat Council he signed Zenon's Enoticon, then already in 506 he convened another local Council in Dvin, where the nakharars, headed by Vakhan's successor, Vard Mamikonyan, and the clergy, as well as representatives of the Kartli and Western Syrian Church approved his "letter" directed against Nestorianism, and at the same time declared a resolute rejection of the Chalcedonian edition of the Creed. The corresponding decrees were translated not only into ancient Greek and Middle Persian, but also into Georgian and Albanian, and even Syriac. The Monophysites (Miafisites) of the Mesopotamian regions of the Sassanid state recognized them and asked Babgen to support them in their confrontation with the Church of the East, which since 484 was under the exclusive patronage of the Shahanshah's power.
The time of the Council turned out to be extremely successful for such a step: it was during these decades that the Sasanian court began to establish contacts with the Monophysite (Miafisite) communities of the Syro-Mesopotamian region, encouraging their opposition to the official Constantinople. OK. 508 Babgen Votmsetsi wrote a second epistle against the Nestorians, where he touched upon the reasons for the negative attitude towards Chalcedonian theology.
After the abolition of the "Enoticon" in 519, the Armenian Church returned to the issue of dogmatic "innovations" and at the Council of Dvina in 554/555, in which the Syrian Abdisho, a follower of Jacob Baradei, took an active part, finally rejected the definitions of Chalcedon and the "Tomos" of Pope Leo I Great. Then she received a special chronology (from July 11, 552). At the same time, the Catholicos of Armenia assumed the title of patriarch, equaling in status with the primates of the five main thrones of the Eastern Empire. Not the last role in this first break in church communion with Constantinople was played by pressure from Iran, which was interested in deepening the differences between the Armenians and Byzantium.
All this unfolded against the background of the intensive integration of the western half of the Armenian lands into the administrative structure of the Eastern Roman Empire. If the nakharar possessions (satrapies) in the south-west of the Armenian Highlands, annexed on a contractual basis at the end of the IV century, still enjoyed a certain autonomy, then in 536 Justinian I completely abolished their self-government. From now on, 4 provinces were established within the Roman borders: in the north - Armenia I, with a center in Theodosiopolis (Karin), in the west Armenia II, with a center in Sevastia (now Sivas), on the right bank of the Euphrates - Armenia III, with a center in Melitina (now Malatya ), on the left bank - Armenia IV.
After the split between the See of St. Gregory and the Patriarchate of Constantinople, a significant part of the Byzantine Armenians, having obeyed the decisions of the Council of Chalcedon, formed a large community of diaphysites. Nevertheless, the ethno-linguistic isolation of the Armenian Chalcedonites of Western Armenia led to the preservation of a special position for them, different from the Greek-speaking co-religionists. According to them, since the representatives of Valarshapat were absent from Chalcedon, they allowed the separation of their Church from the universal due to mostly random circumstances. That is why the Armenian Church never completely broke with Constantinople and even voluntarily strove for dogmatic reunification with it.
The attitude towards the Chalcedonian doctrine was in fact very ambiguous among the Armenians and was determined to a large extent by ecclesiastical and political considerations, primarily by irritation from the provision adopted in Chalcedon on the supremacy of the throne of Constantinople.
In the middle of the VI century Byzantine authorities launched persecution of the anti-Chalcedonites, which further alienated the Armenians from the Greeks, but soon the persecution gave way to attempts to peacefully overcome the split. When in 571 Persarmenia revolted against Shahanshah Khusrav (Khosrov) I Anoshagravan, Catholicos Ioannes II Prince Vardan Mamikonyan Karmir led an embassy to "New Rome", where they agreed on support from Justin II and confirmed church communion with the Romans. Under the emperor Mauritius, disputes with the Armenians were organized in the Byzantine capital, which, however, ended in vain: in 584 or 591, the III Dvinsky Council of the Armenian Church confirmed the decisions taken in 554/555 and again condemned the Chalcedonian creeds.
In the same 591, the situation was decisively influenced by the intervention of Mauritius in Persian affairs on the side of Khusraw II Aparvez; in gratitude, the shahanshah ceded to him all of Great Armenia to the west of the Dvin, where the emperor placed a special "Archon of Armenia". After this, the second partition of the country, Mauritius used the local population for the military colonization of Thrace. At the same time, he supported the establishment of a diophysite catholicosate in Avan in opposition to the catholicosate in Dvin, controlled by the Sassanids. Iovhannes of Bagaran (591-610) sat on his throne, whose authority was soon recognized by the flock and clergy not only of the Byzantine, but also of the Iranian part of Armenia.
With the beginning of the last Iranian-Byzantine war (602/603), Khusrav II, having occupied all the Armenian lands, abolished the Avan Catholicosate. The Kartli and Albanian Churches, which have long been in fraternal relations with the Armenian, in the VI century tended to adhere to one position on the issue of Chalcedon, but soon also experienced growing tension between the factions of the Byzantine and Iranian orientations, which was expressed, respectively, in support of the Diaphysite or Miathisite dogma. The apogee of this confrontation is associated with the name of Abraham, a native of the Vaspurakan village of Albatank and the bishop of his native gavar Rshtunik (southeast of Lake Van), whom the Dvina Cathedral in 606/607 elected as catholicos (until 610/615).
Shortly after his accession to the throne, Abraham demanded that Metropolitan Kirion I of Kartli (599-614/616) change the liturgical language from Georgian to Armenian. This, probably, should have been the first step towards the establishment of the Miafisite dogma in Kartli. The refusal led to the final split between the Armenian and Kartli Churches, which completed the long process of their independent development. Abraham Albatanetsi zealously supported the policy of Khusrav Aparvez, to whom he owed sole control over all Armenian communities after the liquidation of the Catholicosate in Avan. Abraham put the clergy subordinate to him before a choice - once again anathematize the Council of Chalcedon or leave the country.
The stormy controversy between the primates and the deepening of ecclesiastical decentralization resulted in an open rupture between the Catholicosates of Armenia and Kartli in 608/609, which followed the excommunication of Kirion and the repeated anathematization of the Chalcedonian dogma at the IV Dvina Council in 607. At the same time, contradictions on hierarchical grounds were growing between the Armenian and Albanian clerics.
However, Chalcedonism in Armenia was far from over. The Byzantine emperor Heraclius, in search of support against the Persians from the Christians of the East, sought to unite the supporters and opponents of Chalcedon. After a difficult victory over Khusrav, in which both Armenian and Kartli allies contributed, he won the glory of the liberator of the Life-Giving Cross (which he triumphantly returned to Jerusalem in 629). In an effort to dialogue with the Monophysites, starting from the definition of "a single action (energy) of Christ", the emperor sent a message to Valarshapat outlining the confession. There, Ezr, a native of the village of Parazhnakert in the Ayrarat gavar Nig, only entered the patriarchal throne.
At a meeting between the Catholicosate and the emperor in Theodosiopolis (Karin) around 630, they came to a general agreement, as a sign of which they took communion from one cup. Ezr Parazhnakertsi, a well-known theologian from his entourage - Theodoros Syunetsi - supported the invitation to reunite with Greek Orthodoxy, addressed by Heraclius to the Armenian episcopate. The so-called Karin Union actually restored church communion between the Romans and Armenians, whose bishops celebrated the Eucharist together, but caused opposition from part of the Ezra flock. The influential vardapet Iovannes accused the primate of conciliation and corruption, after which he, together with the Suni theologian Methuselah, wrote to Heraclius, putting forward a number of conditions for the recognition of Chalcedon. The question of complete church unity was thus removed from the agenda, but close rapprochement with Constantinople continued: Greek church customs even began to spread in Armenia (communion with leavened bread, the celebration of Christmas on December 25).
On the initiative of Heraclius c. 633 193 Armenian and Roman bishops gathered at the Council in Theodosiopolis/Karin. It is noteworthy that with the active use of Monothelitism as a basis for dialogue with the Syro-Egyptian Monophysites, this teaching was not discussed here. The reason, most likely, was that since the Armenians never maintained full canonical communion with the Jacobites, not recognizing the constructions of the leading Monophysite theologian of the North of Antioch, they, accordingly, had no idea about the concept of "one will", important for its followers. In Karin, there was no compromise between the Diaphysite and Monophysite denominations: in liturgical usage, the Council retained the addition of the key phrase “crucified for us” to the Trisagion and introduced the custom of mixing wine with water during the sacrament of the Eucharist.
Armenian sources unanimously assess what happened as the complete acceptance of the Chalcedonian dogma by their hierarchy, which predetermined its official religion until the end of the 7th century, but depending on their confessional sympathies they evaluate it differently. If the Miafisites (Sebeos, Iovannes Draskhanakaertsi, Asolik) present unity with Constantinople as being personally imposed on the Church by Ezr, then the Chalcedonites (Catholicos Arsen in the Narration, Pseudo-Photius in the Epistle) interpret it as a manifestation of the people's consent. Suffice it to note that after the death of Ezr in 641, his successor Nerses III convened a council that condemned the vardapet Iovhannes for resisting the Karin Union.
Ezr Perazhnakertsi died at a ripe old age and was buried in Dvin, having become famous as a generous benefactor and builder, under whom the restoration of the cathedral in Etchmiadzin and the temples of Hripsim and Gayan took place. His death coincided with the beginning of a series of social and political upheavals that befell Armenia and marked the onset of a new era and its dramatic history - the era of Arab domination.