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Zoroastrianism has been practiced inArmenia since the fifth century BC. It first reached the country during theAchaemenid andParthian periods, when it spread to theArmenian Highlands. Prior to theChristianization of Armenia, it was a predominantly Zoroastrian land.[2] Theyazatas (deities)Mithra (Mihr) andVerethragna (Vahagn) particularly enjoyed a high degree of reverence in the country.[3]
The name ofZoroaster (Zarathustra) is attested inClassical Armenian sources asZradašt (often with the variantZradešt).[4] The most important of these testimonies were provided by the early Christian Armenian authorsEznik of Kolb,Elishe, andMovses Khorenatsi.[4] Elishe also provided the adjectivezradaštakan, meaning "Zoroastrian".[4][a]
Mazdaism, a synonym for Zoroastrianism, is also attested in the earliest extant Armenian texts. The 5th-centuryEpic Histories (Buzandaran Patmutʿiwnkʿ), written in Classical Armenian, associatesmagi (mogkʿ,մոգք) with Mazdaism, which its anonymous author callsMazdezn (Մազդեզն, "Mazdean faith").[5][b] In the 6th century, Elishe preferred to use the wordmogutʿiwn in his texts, which undoubtedly parallels theGeorgianmogobay/moguebay ("Magism", i.e. "Mazdaism, Zoroastrianism") as attested in the early Georgian hagiographies.[6] This feature is also seen in other West Asian languages; inSyriac Christian texts, for example, Mazdaism is usually referred to asmgošūtā.[7]
Zoroastrianism was introduced into Armenia during theAchaemenid era, and it was bolstered during Parthian Arsacid rule.[8] The terminology, belief and symbolism of Zoroastrianism permeated the Armenian religious mindset and lexicon.[8]
Extant sources of the Classical period, in addition to native Armenian sources, are used for research into the Zoroastrian Armenian pantheon and the centres of worship.[9] Sergio La Porta notes inThe Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity that six of the eight divinities whose cultic centres were mentioned by the 5th-century Armenian historianAgathangelos "clearly represent Zoroastrianyazatas or divinities worshipped in Armenia".[9]Aramazd (IranianAhura Mazda, also known as Ohrmazd) was the head of the Armenian pantheon, and the center of his cult was mainly located at Ani-Kamakh (modernKemah) andBagavan.[9] The worship ofAnahit (IranianAnahita, also known as Anahid) was dominant in the area of Ekeleats (Acilisene), whereas that ofVahagn (IranianVerethragna, also known as Wahram) was located atAshtishat.[9] The cult of the divinity ofMihr (IranianMithra) was chiefly located atBagayarich, and it featured greatly in the Armenian religious tradition.[9] The cult of the godTir (IranianTir) had its temple located atArtashat.[9] The Semitic goddessNane may have also been introduced into Armenia with Parthian connections.[9]
Strabo, in hisGeographica, referred to the similarity between Iranian and Armenian religious customs.[9]
A number of Zoroastrian fire-altars have been discovered in Christian sanctuaries in Armenia.[10] In various parts of Armenia, Zoroastrianism lingered on for several centuries even after the official adoption of Christianity. TheArsacid dynasty of Armenia, under which Armenia eventually would become a Christian nation, were pious Zoroastrians who invoked Mithra.[c][11] An episode which illustrates the Armenian Arsacids' observance of the cult is the famous journey ofTiridates I to Rome in A.D. 65–66. Tiridates I, brother ofVologases I of Parthia and founder of the Arsacid dynasty of Armenia, was a Zoroastrian magus or priest.[12][13]
In 53 AD, the Parthian Arsacid dynasty came into Armenia. The king Tiridates I is thought to have done a great amount to spread Zoroastrianism in Armenia.[14] The Arsacid kings legitimized their rule through the authority of the Zoroastrianyazata Verethragna, the god of victory.[15] According to ArmenologistJames R. Russell, Zurvanism was the form of Zoroastrianism underYazdagird II (438–457), which he promoted inPersian Armenia.[16]
TheArmenian calendar shows influences of theZoroastrian calendar.[17][18]
Russell notes that theArmenian cross incorporates influences from Armenia's Zoroastrian past: "The Armenian Cross itself is supported on tongues of flame and has at its center not the body of Christ, but asunburst".[19] As Zoroastrian traditions were very much integrated into Armenian spiritual and material culture, they survived the zealotry of theSasanian priestKartir (fl. 3rd century) and his successors, and they were ultimately incorporated into Armenian Christianity.[19]
Nina Garsoïan argues that—although the Christianization of Armenia separated it from the Zoroastrian world it had once been part of—the Zoroastrian mythology "had sunk so deep in the Armenian popular tradition that early Armenian Christian writers were apparently forced to alter Biblical stories in order to make their evangelizing mission comprehensible to their hearers".[15] By the second half of the 4th century, thecatholicoi of the Armenian Church still officially used the title of Zoroastrian priests (mowbed) namely "Defender of the dispossessed" (Middle Persian:driγōšān jātakgōw, Armenian:ǰatagov amenayn zrkelocʿ).[15][20] However, Armenia post-Christianization gradually withdrew from the Iranian spiritual tradition, and its resistance to Sasanian Zoroastrianism soon also turned into opposition against the Christian national church of the Sasanians, theChurch of the East.[15]
Aramazd was the chief andcreator god in the Armenian version ofZoroastrianism.[21] The deity and his name were derived from the deityAhura Mazda after theMedian conquest of Armenia in the 6th century BC.[22] Aramazd was regarded as a generous god of fertility, rain, and abundance, as well as the father of the other gods, includingAnahit,Mihr, andNane. Like Ahura Mazda, Aramazd was seen as the father of the other gods, rarely with a wife, though sometimes husband to Anahit orSpandaramet. Aramazd was theParthian form of Ahura Mazda.[23]
The Zoroastrian fire festival, an equivalent ofChaharshanbe Suri,[24] survives in Armenia in theTrndez festival surrounding the Feast of thePresentation of Jesus celebrated on February 13/14.[25] The summer water festivalVardavar, adapted by the Armenian Church as theFeast of the Transfiguration, is also of Zoroastrian origin.[26] It corresponds to thetīregān (or āb-rīzān) festival.[24]
The early medievalPaulician sect "may have included unconverted Armenian Zoroastrians."[27]
Reports indicate that there were Zoroastrian Armenians in Armenia until the 1920s.[28] This small group of Armenian Zoroastrians that had survived through the centuries were known as theArewordikʿ ("Children of the Sun").[19] They had never converted to Christianity and appear to have survived as late as theHamidian massacres and theArmenian genocide at the turn of the 20th century.[19] Medieval Armenian sources narrate that theArewordikʿ were never converted byGregory the Illuminator, the patron saint and first official head of theArmenian Apostolic Church, and that they had been "infected" by Zradasht (Zoroaster).[19] TheArewordikʿ were specifically distinguished from Christian sects whose adherents were deemed heretics (such as thePaulicians andTondrakians).[19] TheArewordikʿ had seemingly taught the Paulicians and Tondrakians "to expose the dead on rooftops instead of burying them", which indicates that burial and exposure of the dead was practiced in Armenia as in Iran.[19]
TheArewordikʿ spoke theArmenian language and, as Russell notes, revered thepoplar and allheliotropic plants.[19] Russell adds: "A tree which is either a poplar or acypress, probably the latter, which is particularly revered by the Zoroastrians, appears on anArtaxiad coin."[19] TheArewordikʿ Armenians offered sacrifices for the souls of the dead, and the leader of theArewordikʿ was called theHazarpet (cf. IranianHazarbed).[19] TheArewordikʿ were known to populate five villages in the area ofMardin (present-day southeasternTurkey) in the late 14th century, Mazaka (later renamedKayseri) and others inhabitedSamosata (modernSamsat, Turkey) andAmida (modernDiyarbakır, Turkey).[19] In the town of Marsovan (modernMerzifon, Turkey), in the early 20th century, the Armenian quarter was known as "Arewordi".[19] Furthermore, a cemetery outside the town was known as "Arewordii gerezman", and an Armenian owner of a close by vineyard was named "Arewordean", Armenian for "Arewordi-son".[19]
In Armenian historiography, the pre-Christian religion of Armenia is usually referred to as simply paganism (hetanosutyun).[29]Leo andManuk Abeghyan viewed Armenian paganism "almost identical" to Zoroastrianism.[30][31] Before Christianization, Zoroastrianism in Armenia and Georgia "tended to be syncretic and adaptable with plentiful local elements."[32]Georges Charachidzé suggests that "the paganism of the ancient Armenians is almost entirely inaccessible to us", describing it as "a sort of local version of Zoroastrianism."[33] According toChristina Maranci, from the fourth to first centuries BC, the inhabitants of Armenia "worshipped a local pantheon of gods with parallels in the Zoroastrian religion of Iran", hence the term Hellenistic Armenia, "often used to describe this period, is potentially misleading."[34]Helen C. Evans suggests that "most Armenians converting to Christianity practiced local religions, like the worship of Anahit or Zoroastrianism, the state religion of Persia, while a few venerated the classical gods of Rome."[35]Vrej Nersessian describes Armenia's pre-Christian religion as simply Zoroastrianism.[36]
Albert de Jong states that although theArmenians and easternGeorgians (Iberians of classical authors) were Zoroastrians prior to their conversion to Christianity, the characterization of those peoples' pre-Christian religion as Zoroastrianism has been vehemently opposed, in particular by Armenian and Georgian scholars, who, de Jong says, "prefer to think of the pre‐Christian religions of the Armenians and Georgians as chiefly 'local' or 'indigenous' traditions, which accommodated some Iranian elements".[37] De Jong continues:[38]
They are aided in this interpretation by the fact that the (Christian) Armenian and Georgian sources rarely, if at all, identify the religion of their ancestors before their conversion to Christianity as "Zoroastrianism." These sources either prefer seemingly neutral terms (such as "the religion of our forefathers") or polemical ones ("heathenism"), but do not label the religion as "Iranian" or "Zoroastrian." Where these terms occur, they refer to the religion of the Persians, chiefly of the Persians as enemies of the Christian Armenians. This fact in itself, while undeniable, is not compelling; on the contrary, it seems to be in harmony with the self‐identifications of most of the Iranians; the wide spread of the term "Zoroastrian" is of post‐Sasanian date and even "Mazda‐worshipping" is mainly used in limited (e.g., imperial and liturgical) contexts. Iranian Zoroastrians seem to have been identified after the Iranian land they came from (Persians, Parthians,Sogdians, etc.), with the Zoroastrian element of their identity self‐understood.
Within this matter, confusion has been created mainly due to the works of historians of Zoroastrianism, who often interpret it as an "identity" dominating all others.[39] Furthermore, these same historians employ a very tightly restricted delineation of what is "real" Zoroastrianism.[39] This essentialist definition only closely reflects the Sasanian version of Zoroastrianism.[39] Many scholars, failing to recognize this fact, have resorted to using this version of the Zoroastrian religion, which is historically and culturally very specific, as a standard by which to consider the evidence for the non-Sasanian versions of Zoroastrianism.[39] De Jong adds that this approach is not only anachronistic—for example, it measures Parthian Zoroastrianism to standards that existed only after the fall of the Parthian Empire—but also "anatopistic" in disregarding the probability of zonal developments in Zoroastrianism past the borders of the central regions of the Sasanian Empire.[39] Both are existing problems in relation to Armenian (and Georgian) Zoroastrianism.[39] Although the extant Zoroastrian evidence from Armenia (and Georgia) is scant and not easy to clarify, it is of major value for questioning the viability of most current methods that assess the history of Zoroastrianism.[39]
... the old Zoroastrian feast of Vardavar ... This would point to another mode of continuity of Vardavar in Christian Armenia, for the Armenian Church adopted Vardavar as the feast of the Transfiguration, celebrated on the seventh Sunday after Pentecost.
Հայ կրոնագիտության մեջ ընդունված է Հ. անվանել հայոց նախաքրիստոնեական կրոնը:
Ի տարբերություն այն կարծիքի, թե հայ հեթանոսությունը զրադաշտականի գրեթե կրկնօրինակումն է (Լեո, Մ.Աբեղյան և այլոք)
The second break was initiated by the ascendance of Christianity over Zoroastrianism as Armenia's state religion.