ARMENIA is perhaps the oldest of all the Christian countries in the world. It was a powerful nation at the advent of Christ, although at different periods in its history it was occupied by the Persians under Cyrus, the Macedonians under Alexander the Great, and the Romans under the Csesars. One of the kings of Armenia, Tigranes II, made a treaty with Pompey under which he submitted to a protectorate from Rome, but after his death his son and successor, Artavasdes III, rebelled, was severely chastised by Marc Antony, and taken prisoner to Alexandria, where he was beheaded in the year 30 B.C. by order of Cleopatra.
There is a legend that one of the immediate successors of Tigranes, having heard of the teachings of Jesus and His persecution by the Jews, sent Him a letter by a distinguished envoy offering Him the hospitality of Armenia and the widest freedom in carrying on His work. Jesus, the tradition continues, replied that His duty lay among His own people, but sent a representative in the person of His disciple, Thaddeus, who was warmly received and preached the new Gospel throughout the kingdom until the entire population accepted the Christian faith. Some clever fabricator several years ago pretended to discover the original manu-
ARMENIANS AND THEffi PERSECUTION 155
script of this correspondence among the archives of one of the ancient Armenian monasteries, and the announcement created a decided sensation.
It is a matter of regret that this legend cannot be sustained, but it is an actual fact that Tiridates, king of Armenia, was converted to Christianity in the year 259 A.D. by St. Gregory, "the Enlightener," and was therefore the first sovereign in the world to accept the new faith and to adopt it as the religion of his nation. The Emperor Constantino did not accept Christianity until thirty years or more afterward. Armenia is therefore the oldest of Christian countries, and the monastery of Etchmiadzin, twelve miles from Erivan, is still, as it has been from the third century, the ecclesiastical headquarters of the Armenian church. The word in English means "the only begotten."
But the Armenians have had a stormy time in defence of their religion ever since. Theological controversies began early among them, and persecution has been relentless. The Armenian clergy refused to accept the decree of the council of Chalcedon, and in 491 A.D. seceded from the Church of Rome. Later they separated from the orthodox Greeks, and although frequent attempts have been made to bring about a reunion with the Church of Russia, which is a branch of the Greek Church, the Armenians have remained an independent ecclesiastical body, with a pope or patriarch called a katholikos as its administrative head, with the monastery of Etchmiadzin as his metropolis. He is elected for life by delegates from the various Armenian communities throughout the world, who come there for that purpose when a vacancy occurs, and he is the spiritual head of believers in the Armenian creed in America, Europe,
Asia, and Africa. The authority of the Armenian katholikos does not extend to theological questions. The creed of that faith cannot be altered except by a vote of the house of bishops, and he does not claim to be infallible. His jurisdiction is executive and judicial, and he is protected by the czar of Russia, who enforces his edicts.
No people have suffered so much for their religion, not even the children of Israel, as the Armenians, and the atrocities committed upon them during the thirty years of the reign of Abdul Hamid, the late sultan of Turkey, were the most barbarous that modern history has ever recorded. I do not remember that ever before, at least in modern times, the sovereign of a country deliberately set about to exterminate by massacre the subjects of his authority. There is no longer any question that "The great assassin, the unspeakable Turk," as Mr. Gladstone called him, gave the instructions that led to the slaughter of nearly 100,000 innocent inhabitants of his province of Armenia, the destruction of their homes, the plundering of their property, and the violation of their wives and daughters. Even if there had been any previous doubt of his guilt, documents foimdjn the Yildiz Kiosk after he was deposed, established the fact that he had a deliberate intention to depopulate Armenia by the torch and the sword in a systematic and thorough manner.