Archbisho Mesrob Ashjian’s ‘The Etchmiadzin Chronicles’

By Tatul Sonentz-Papazian

When I was first approached by the late Archbishop, with a request to present—what was to be the last of his numerous distinguished works—at a function that was to take place the very next day of his unexpected, untimely demise, I accepted the task, sight unseen.

"It is called ‘The Ejmiatzin Chronicles’ he said; Ejmiatzin as seen by foreign travelers; you will like it."

I knew I was in trouble, when a few days later, the postman delivered the package that contained the volume, and... I had to use both hands to lift it....

But what a thrill it was when I opened it and started leafing through the handsomely designed, beautifully typeset and illustrated chapters! A lavish production maintained within the boundaries of good taste; simply put, a true work of love that can easily compete with the very best.

As part of the front-matter, on the fifth page, facing the acknowledgements, looking like an abstract impressionist rendering of the awesome scene of divine creation, appears a full color, satellite view of Mount Ararat, taken from heaven above... a timeless wonder of creation, captured by the soaring technology of our own troubled times.

That scene, setting the mood for this lofty endeavor, is followed by three more photographs of Ararat, in different moods, taken from more earthbound vantage points.... Then, the image of the very subject of this volume, the Cathedral of Holy Ejmiatzin appears in all its austere, restrained majesty.

Consisting of some 900 pages, containing 96 color, and 176 black and white photographs, with numerous rarely seen wood and steel engravings and reproductions of paintings, this volume, produced by the Moughni Publishers of Armenia, with a generous grant from the Dolores Zohrab Liebman Fund, will surely, occupy a special place in any library, private or public. Published on the occasion of the 1700th Anniversary of the consecration of the mother cathedral—Mayr Tajar—of Ejmiatzin, this compendium of multi-lingual chronicles, penned by visitors and travelers of various backgrounds is, indeed, a monumental achievement worthy of its venerable subject. Covering a time period of 600 years, from the XIIIth to the XIXth century, accounts by—just to name a few—such divers personalities as John Newberry, possibly the first Englishman to visit Armenia, in the year 1581; the Neapolitan jurist and statesman Giovanni Francesco Carreri, who visited Ejmiatzin in 1694; David Porter, an American naval officer, Commander of the Essex during the War of 1812, who made a journey to Ejmiatzin in the year 1832, while serving at the US Embassy in Constantinople; to His Highness Abbas Mirza, Crown Prince of Persia, in the year 1809. They, along with many other travelers and visitors, convey a vast panorama of impressions that, taken all together, constitute an almost global register of the miraculous phenomenon that is Holy Ejmiatzin.

As the author states, few cultures have such locations of divine presence and spiritual content; the Catholics have the Vatican and Lourdes, the Muslims Mecca and Medina, the Hindus have Benares, and for the Japanese it is Kyoto. Fulfilling its destiny in the shadow of the sacred mountain on which, by God’s will, Noah’s Ark came to rest, Vagharshapat-Ejmiatzin, covering an area of only a few square miles, remains unique in Christendom with its divinely inspired structure and its seniority over all other Christian churches.

Those visiting Holy Ejmiatzin will see, on the north side of the Cathedral, a two meter-high, 3000-year old ceremonial stone used in Urartian rituals a millennium before Christ was born. In pagan Armenia, Ejmiatzin was called Artemid, a town dedicated to the goddess Astghik, later to become Vagharshapat, home of a Zoroastrian temple, the massive fire altar of which—the atrushan—has been preserved and can be visited, directly beneath the present main altar of the Mother Cathedral.

Truly, a place of divine presence since time immemorial, where, according to tradition, in the year of our Lord 303, St. Gregory the Illuminator had a vision wherein the Lord himself, in the form of a handsome young man, descended from heaven and drew the picture of the first Armenian Church....

So, tradition tells us, that Christ, with that apparition in Vagharshapat, became the conceptual architect of all Christian houses of worship, throughout the world. It is that vision, born of faith, and a long history of biblical scope receding into the mists of time, that make Ejmiatzin a place of mystery, a place of contact with the Everlasting in its various manifestations over the millennia.

Observed from a more earthly vantage point, one must note that Ejmiatzin/Vagharshapat sat on the trade routes extending from Constantinople to Erzrum, Van, Aleppo, Tabriz, Isfahan, and on to India. Vagharshapat had a customs house through which passed merchants, travelers, and emissaries of all nationalities on their way to the Orient and back. Among them were numerous European authors, botanists, missionaries, diplomats, and adventurers who kept diaries or wrote detailed impressions of historic locations, such as Ejmiatzin. Archbishop Ashjian himself asks: "How did they come? Why did they come? Whom did they see? What events did they witness? And when they returned home, what did they write?"

And, as an answer to these questions, he states: "...on the occasion of the 1700th anniversary of the consecration of the Mother Cathedral, I had the opportunity to compile a book dedicated to that anniversary. The book is entitled "The Chronicles of Ejmiatzin." The work was, indeed, interesting. I am very happy that my diligent work, lasting 8 to 10 months, gave good results." Anyone who has been saddled with the task of putting together any publication of a certain size, will tell you that rare is the person who can compile and produce a 900 page, 8 1/4 X 12," multi-lingual, illustrated tome, complete with several appendices, glossary, chronological tables, bibliography, geographical index, and more, in the constraints of such a limited time. To give an idea of the enormity of the task, let us take a closer look at the contents of this volume:

To start with, it has sections in English, Italian, Russian, German, and French; the authors’ writings appear in their native language. Some, have been translated into English.

The 95-page preface starts by describing how, in 1903, with the initiative of Catholicos Khrimian Hairik, the 1600th anniversary of the consecration of the Mother Cathedral was celebrated. Then, it concludes by depicting Gregory the Illuminator’s vision, how the Cathedral was built and how the Armenian Pontificate was established there.

The Preface also sheds new light on the lifestyle of the period in terms of religious beliefs, traditions and customs, as practiced by the Armenian people from the XVIIth century to the present. Interspersed in this section, are references to Noah’s Ark and Mt. Ararat as well as a complete list of those who have climbed that sacred mountain between the years 1829 and 2000.

In an absorbing section titled "Ejmiatzin After Ejmiatzin," the history of a thousand-year wanderings becomes alive, as the Catholicosate of All Armenians moved from Dvin to Ani, Tsamendav, Hromkla, and Sis in Cilicia, to return to the holy place of its origin in the year 1414, having upheld and maintained, in its forced exile, the unity of faith and nation.

Also represented is the politically turbulent period between the XVth and the XIXth centuries, when the Armenian homeland was divided between the Persian and Ottoman Empires and, eventually, the Russian Empire. Over the same period, one is reminded of the successive domination of the Akkoyunlus, Karakoyunlus, Jalalies, the Khans and Pashas of Yerevan who periodically robbed Ejmiatzin of its riches, but never of its dignity and disdain for transient, temporal values.

Along these lines, inevitably, the activities of both Catholic and Protestant missionaries, and their efforts to bring the Armenian Apostolic Church under the sway of Rome or into the orbit of Lutheran and Calvinist Protestantism becomes also a subject of the "Ejmiatzin Chronicles," in not too flattering terms.

The first part of the chronicles, themselves, starting on page 121 and ending on page 140 consists of works in the English language. It begins with Johannes Schiltberger (1381-1440), followed by 47 authors of various backgrounds, and concludes with Muzaffer ed Din Shah’s visit to the Mother See in the year 1900.

Then, under the title of "Chronache di Ecmiazin," from page 405 to 412, come the Italian texts, consisting of the writings by Giovanni Francisco Cemelli-Carreri, Father Felice Maria Severini da Sellano, and a narrative of the Italian Prince Vittorio Emmanuele’s visit to Armenia, also in 1890. This, is followed by the Russian texts, "Khronika Echmiyatzinia," covering the pages 417 to 456. It has six entries, starting with that of Murabiev Nicolay Nicolayevich (1817) and concluding with Nicolay Fedorovich Dubrovnyi (1806).

The German section, "Die Chroniken Von Etchmiazin," starts on page 457, with a narrative by Eva Maria Auch, and after texts by 13 additional authors, ends on page 555 with a piece by Paul and Clara Rohrbach, dated 1900. "Les Chroniques d’Edjmiatzine," covering the texts written in French, starts on page 557 with Guillome de Rubrock’s text, dated 1253, continues with 43 additional texts written by authors in a variety of fields, and concludes on page 775, with letters written by an anonymous author, circa 1812. Thus, a grand total of 120 pieces, in five different languages, come together to give us a historic view, through the eyes of unusual and distinguished personalities in quest of knowledge and enlightenment through travel.

One of the many attractions of Ejmiatzin to visitors from various parts of the world was its hospitality. The monastery hosted pilgrims from all walks of life without charging any fee. Many of the visiting chroniclers, specially the French, remember in their writings the wine offered to them, comparing it to famous French wines. A number of other early traditions and customs are described, some of which are still followed. To name a few: if the guest was a notable of some stature, in the past, the Catholicos used to organize a bullfight in his honor. Or, when it was time for the ceremonial lighting of the Tearendaraj fire, that honor fell to the benefactor whose donation to the monastery exceeded those of other donors. It was also customary for wealthy pilgrims to award monetary gifts to the monks and other clergy, from the bishops to the acolytes. How many people are aware today that Ejmiatzin was built over a water table, protecting it, to a certain degree, from seismic shocks and, through the use of wells supplying fresh water to the monastery and the constant flow of pilgrims and travelers.

Getting back to the graphics, among the 272 illustrations, consisting of rarely seen drawings, engravings, maps, and photographs, one can see the images of such diverse subjects as the clay fence dating back to the reign of Catholicos Simeon, the open altar built by Catholicos Garegin II, historic inscriptions on and in the Cathedral, a magnificent cross-stone chiseled in the year 1451, the tombstone of an English diplomat buried in the eastern side of the Cathedral, stones with inscriptions in Greek and other languages.

The final section of this outstanding volume includes memorable articles by well known authors like Chardin, Tavernier, and Tournefort, missionaries and priests of the Augustinian, Jesuit, and other religious orders. Stories like how Nadir Shah paid a visit to Catholicos Abraham Cretatsi, how a couple of ascetics from Portugal celebrated the Divine Liturgy on the Altar of the Cathedral, and how, Khrimian Hayrik addressed Muzaffer ad Din Shah with a speech delivered in French. Many other anecdotal narratives make this section a delight to read.

Like I said, anyone who has been saddled with the task of putting together any publication of a certain size, will tell you that rare is the person who can compile and produce a 900 page compendium of this caliber, in such a limited time—alas more limited than he or us realized at the time. Archbishop Mesrop Ashjian was such an individual; a Prince and tireless servant of God and men, of his church and his nation, serving the divine and the temporal, wherever needed, with boundless faith and energy.