​GREGORY THE ILLUMINATOR, the reputed founder of theArmenian Church. His legend is briefly as follows. His fatherAnak, head of the Parthian clan of Suren, was bribed aboutthe time of his birth (c. 257) by the Sassanid king of Persia toassassinate the Armenian king, Chosroes, who was of the oldArsacid dynasty, and father of Tiridates or Trdat, first Christianking of Armenia. Anak was slain by his victim’s soldiers;Gregory was rescued by his Christian nurse, carried to Caesareain Cappadocia, and brought up a Christian. Grown to manhoodhe took service under Tiridates, now king of Armenia, in orderby his own fidelity to atone for his father’s treachery. Presentlyat a feast of Anahite Gregory refused to assist his sovereign inoffering pagan sacrifice, and his parentage being now revealed,was thrown into a deep pit at Artashat, where he languishedfor fourteen years, during which persecution raged in Armenia.

The scene of the legend now shifts to Rome, where Diocletianfalls in love with a lovely nun named Ripsimé; she, rather thangratify his passion, flees with her abbess Gaiana and severalpriests to Armenia. Diocletian asks her back of Tiridates, whomeanwhile has fallen in love with her himself. He too is flouted,and in his rage tortures and slays her and her companions.The traditional date of this massacre is the 5th of October, ​A.D. 301. Providence, incensed at such cruelty, turns Tiridatesinto a wild boar, and afflicts his subjects with madness; but hissister, Chosrowidukht, has a revelation to bring Gregory backout of his pit. The king consents, the saint is acclaimed, thebodies of the thirty-seven martyrs solemnly interred, and theking, after fasting five, and listening to Gregory’s homilies forsixty days, is healed. This all took place at Valarshapat, whereGregory, anxious to fix a site on which to build shrines for therelics of Ripsimé and Gaiana, saw the Son of God come down ina sheen of light, the stars of heaven attending, and smite theearth with a golden hammer till the nether world resoundedto his blows. Three chapels were built on the spot, and Gregoryraised his cross there and elsewhere for the people to worship,just as St Nino was doing about the same time in Georgia. Therefollowed a campaign against the idols whose temples and bookswere destroyed. The time had now come for Gregory, who wasstill a layman and father of two sons, to receive ordination;so he went to Caesarea, where Leontius ordained and consecratedhim catholicos or vicar-general of Armenia. This was sometimeabout 290, when Leontius may have acceded, though we firsthear of him as bishop in 314.

Gregory’s ordination at Caesarea is historical. The visionat Valarshapat was invented later by the Armenians when theybroke with the Greeks, in order to give to their church thesemblance, if not of apostolic, at least of divine origin.

According to Agathangelus, Tiridates went to Rome withGregory, Aristaces, son of Gregory, and Albianos, head of theother priestly family, to make a pact with Constantine, newlyconverted to the faith, and receive a pallium from Silvester.The better sources make Sardica the scene of meeting and nameEusebius (of Nicomedia) as the prelate who attended Constantine.There is no reason to doubt that some such visit was made aboutthe year 315, when the death of Maximin Daza left Constantinesupreme. Eusebius testifies (H.E. ix. 8) that the Armenianswere ardent Christians, and ancient friends and allies of theRoman empire when Maximin attacked them about the year308. The conversion of Tiridates was probably a matter ofpolicy. His kingdom was honeycombed with Christianity, andhe wished to draw closer to the West, where he foresaw thevictory of the new faith, in order to fortify his realm againstthe Sassanids of Persia. Following the same policy he sentAristaces in 325 to the council of Nice. Gregory is related tohave added a clause to the creed which Aristaces brought back;he became a hermit on Mount Sebuh about the year 332, anddied there.

Is the Ripsimé episode mere legend? The story of theconversion of Georgia by St Nino in the same age is so full oflocal colour, and coheres so closely with the story of Ripsiméand Gaiana, that it seems over-sceptical to explain the latteraway as a mere doublet of the legend of Prisca and Valeria.The historians Faustus of Byzant and Lazar of Pharp in the 5thcentury already attest the reverence with which their memorywas invested. We know from many sources the prominenceassigned to women prophets in the Phrygian church. Nino’sstory reads like that of such a female missionary, and somethingsimilar must underlie the story of her Armenian companions.

The history of Gregory by Agathangelus is a compilation ofabout 450, which was rendered into Greek 550. Professor Marrhas lately published an Arabic text from a MS. in Sinai whichseems to contain an older tradition. A letter of Bishop Georgeof Arabia to Jeshu, a priest of the town Anab, dated 714 (editedby Dashian, Vienna, 1891), contains an independent tradition ofGregory, and styles him a Roman by birth.

In spite of legendary accretions we can still discern the trueoutlines and significance of his life. He did not really illumineor convert great Armenia, for the people were in the main alreadyconverted by Syrian missionaries to the Adoptionist or Ebionitetype of faith which was dominant in the far East, and wasafterwards known as Nestorianism. Marcionites and Montanistshad also worked in the field. Gregory persuaded Tiridatesto destroy the last relics of the old paganism, and carried outin the religious sphere his sovereign’s policy of detaching GreatArmenia from the Sassanid realm and allying it with the Graeco-Romanempire and civilization. He set himself to Hellenizeor Catholicize Armenian Christianity, and in furtherance of thisaim set up a hierarchy officially dependent on the Cappadocian.He in effect turned his country into a province of the Greek seeof Cappadocia. This hierarchical tie was soon snapped, but theHellenizing influence continued to work, and bore its mostabundant fruit in the 5th century. His career was thus analogousto that of St Patrick in Ireland.