Lecture by Vyacheslav Terekhov within the framework of the White India project at the Lev Gumilyov Center
By my main specialty I am a religious scholar, I studied at the Orthodox St. Tikhon University and taught there for 4 years. Now my main field of activity is excursions around Moscow and not only. I love, like any person, to travel, and in every country I am interested, first of all, in its sacred meaning, sacred cut, i.e. sacred.
What is Sacred Geography?
We will try to figure out first why we are interested in Armenia, and what sacred geography is. We know political, economic geography, and yet not everyone knows what sacred geography is. Well, as, for example, such a well-known mystic and expert in occultism, expert in alchemy Yevgeny Vsevolodovich Golovin said: “Sacred geography is looking for sacred centers and sacred meanings”. True, he was working on a different topic, on magical geography. Magic geography works with a completely different layer, objects of magic geography on the world map cannot be found. And now we will try to find the objects of sacred geography on the map of Armenia.
In general, the very word geography carries a sacred connotation. How to translate this word? “To measure the earth”, but is usually translated as “surveying”. But initially, this is not at all a land like soil or land divided into countries, but Gaia is the first goddess in the Greek Pantheon. In ancient Greek mythology, the goddess Chthonia, aka Gaia, emerges first from the primary substance of chaos and darkness.
Accordingly, geography is a reference to the goddess Gaia. Even this term itself, this science itself initially had a sacred meaning. This is what we are trying to return to in our lectures.
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Great Armenia
First, let's define the usual geography of this country. Let's say a few words at the beginning about the history of Armenia, so that there is something to start from, and about its current state. As you can see on the map, Armenia is a small country. The area is smaller than the Moscow region, but Armenia has a huge number of historical and religious monuments. Basically, of course, connected with the Armenian Apostolic Church (what kind of church we will tell in detail later), but not only, there are other national religious communities in this country.
In my opinion, there is no other region on the territory of the former USSR where so many sacred sacred centers are located so densely in such a relatively small space.
Modern Armenia borders on four countries. Georgia from above, in the north. Iran in the south. These are two open borders. The borders with Turkey and Azerbaijan, in the southeast and northwest, are tightly closed and the problem area is Nagorno-Karabakh.
Armenia mainly lies on the so-called Ararat plateau. Such a rather dry valley. There are not many mountains there. The mountains are mainly in the northern part, closer to Georgia, in the area of the former principality of Lori, where the city of Stepanavan is now located. There remained a fortress and, by the way, a sacred spring, which will be discussed later. Springs, springs are also sacred centers in many cultures. At least even remember any consecrated spring in Russia.
The mountainous part of Armenia is mainly north, and its central part is Yerevan, or as it was called in the past, Erivan. Once the Erebuni fortress, founded not by the Armenians, but by the Urarts many thousands of years ago, by the way, it has been partially preserved on the outskirts of Yerevan. And the Erivan fortress (built in the 17th century by the Seljuk Turks, for some time Armenia was under the Muslims) has not survived, it was dismantled in the Soviet years, unfortunately. Yerevan is the least interesting city in Armenia, there is nothing to see there, except for cognac factories and museums, there are almost no ancient temples. The Ararat plant, by the way, stands where the Erivan fortress once stood.
But if we go from Yerevan to any region southeast closer to Iran, we will find out where the principality of Syunik was located in the Middle Ages (the Middle Ages is a period of feudal fragmentation in Armenia) and other numerous principalities - Lori, the Ayrarat principality (Yerevan), where in the region of present-day northern Turkey were the princedoms of Sofenskoe, Kommagenskoe and some others. In the past, Armenia was much larger in territory than it is today.
Armenia once occupied a significant territory, it was Great Armenia of the times of the Roman Empire, to which it never submitted. But since we are a little away from the Greco-Roman world, we have hardly heard of such a state. Great Armenia experienced its heyday on the border of our era, when Tsar Trdat II ruled, and in the second half of the first century AD Christianity began to penetrate into Armenia. The Apostles Thaddeus and Bartholomew were the first preachers of Christianity. And the capital of this great Armenia was not Yerevan. There were many princes and kings in the history of Armenia with the name of Tigran, and they founded capitals named after themselves. One of the Tigranokerts is located not at all on the territory of present-day Armenia, but rather south of Lake Van.
The Van principality was once Armenian-speaking. Indeed, Great Armenia stretched right up to Israel.
The coat of arms of the state of Great Armenia is quite stylized.
It has existed since the second century BC. In 190 BC. on the fragments of the Empire of Alexander the Great, Prince Artashes I declared independence, and this is how the principality of Ararat appeared. It was one of the first independent Armenian-speaking state formations with an Armenian ethnos. And it existed until the moment when it was conquered by the Sassanid empire, which later tried to plant Zoroastrianism there. This was in the 5th century AD. The state of Great Armenia existed for about 600 years, even the Romans could not completely subdue it.
What does the Behistun inscription say?
This bas-relief, which is about 2500 years old, is the first mention of Armenians in historical sources. The "Behistun Inscription", which is located in the north of modern Turkey since the 6th century BC, depicts the peoples conquered by King Darius I. They are depicted as his slaves. One of the cuneiform inscriptions contains the first mention of the Armenians. 2,500 years ago, Armenia is mentioned as a rich state that strives for independence and does not obey Darius I.
A certain sacred element is also applied here - the symbol of the god Ahuramazda. The empire of Darius I professed Zoroastrianism, a religion that arose more than 2500 years ago. The prophet Zarathustra, the founder of this religion, lived between the 8th and 6th centuries BC. and stood out for the fact that he preached monotheism - pantheism. There are many parallels between Zoroastrianism, Islam, Christianity and Judaism. Although Zoroastrianism does not have explicit biblical roots like the last three, there are many similar stories. True, the main difference between Zoroastrianism and the so-called Abrahamic religions is a pronounced dualism, i.e. the existence of the sovereign God and the devil, Ahuramazda and Angramaynu. If in Christianity, for example, God is eternal, and Satan is not eternal, the fallen angel is not omnipotent, then in Zoroastrianism they balance each other, they are eternal.
The main mythological archetypes of Armenia
Let us turn to the concept of an archetype, try to define the main mythological archetypes that were present in the history of Armenia and trace how certain archetypes persisted or evolved relative to certain religions. What is an archetype anyway? For the first time the term archetype was used by Plato, then the philosopher Jung wrote about it. And Mircea Eliade. But if applied to mythology and religions, then an archetype is a certain stable idea, a certain plot that passes from one culture, from one historical era to another.
An example that perfectly illustrates what archetypes are is the World Tree and the veneration of trees, sacred trees such as oak or poplar, even in pre-Christian, in pagan, in ancient times. As in shamanism, the Tree connects the worlds with its trunk. Our world with you, the upper world, where the gods, spirits and the lower world live, where, in the representation of shamanism, people who have passed away, their souls live. By the way, in shamanism, the posthumous fate was understood in the same way as our life, i.e. there it was necessary to work, hunt, and fish. From this view, in the so-called primitive religions, household items were found in burials. In highly developed religions, the concept of another world is more complex. But the archetype of the World Tree and the archetype of the World Mountain close to it is found not only in shamanism. World mountain in Armenia is, first of all,Ararat or as it was called in ancient times - Masis. In other more complex religions, we can find this plot, for example, in Buddhism, where Mount Meru or Sumeru is considered the center of the universe and the rest of the universe exists around it.
Sacred Mountain of Armenia - Ararat is located in Turkey. In 1921, Lenin transferred this region to Turkey. At that time, the Soviet Union had not yet received international recognition, diplomatic relations had not been established with most countries, and the young state was distributing "nishtyaks" to different countries in order to gain international recognition. Turkey was given the Ararat region. There was such a plot, like a historical anecdote, it had many different options. This mountain is depicted on many Armenian symbols, on the coat of arms, on the coat of arms of the "Ararat" plant. And the Turks once told the Armenians that how can you portray a mountain that is not on your territory. To which the Armenians replied - and you have a crescent, it's not on your territory. This answer is attributed to Molotov in Soviet times.
Mircea Eliade, a famous American religious scholar, wrote about the sacred understanding of mountains in his work "Shamanism". He said that climbing a mountain is always a journey to the center of the earth, to the center of the universe. If you are driving, for example, from Yerevan to such popular tourist places, at least to the Khor Virap monastery, then you see two mountains - Ararat - big brother Masis - 5165m (it seems to be close, you can reach with your hand), and small Ararat, he slightly to the side - 3896m.
The Armenians, of course, lament that Ararat is now in Turkey. Even in pre-Christian times, in pre-biblical times, in the foothills of Ararat, a person could already face manifestations of the sacred, the spirits of vishapas lived there. Now vishaps are called dolmens. The Armenians also have dolmens in many regions.
What are vishaps
Vishaps are spirits of springs, spirits of mountains, spirits of lakes, embodied in tall stone statues. And they live in the foothills, for example, in the area of Mount Aragats (the highest point in Armenia, located north of Yerevan). Many of them have been restored already in the Soviet era. Once they were lying, but now they are installed for tourists.
If we drive away from Yerevan literally forty kilometers, we will find ourselves in such a very interesting place - the valley of Mount Aragats. There are glacial lakes there, and one of the highest points of Armenia is the Azhdahak volcano. Azhdahak is the name of one of the vishaps. Fire and Water were once brother and sister, but they quarreled. The volcano, as it were, symbolizes this unity and opposition. Yezidi Kurds live in the foothills of Azhdahak, this is a separate ethnic group, by the way, the second religion and second nationality in Armenia after the Armenians.
And now the Yezidi Kurds live a semi-nomadic way of life in the vicinity of Aragats (they are in Georgia, even in the Crimea, it seems, there are Kurds).
There are many mythological plots around the vishaps, but, obviously, this is a phallic cult. In Christian times, this tradition of sacred understanding of stone monuments continued. This turned into such an Armenian specific applied religious art of stone carving, khachkar carving, crosses, carved on stone. In the Armenian church tradition, the veneration of icons is very underdeveloped. Even in neighboring Georgia, there are as many icons in churches as there are in Russians. But there are very few icons in Armenian churches. Frescoes are mostly, and icons, as they are in Russian houses of believers, are rarely seen in Armenian houses. Mostly in churches there are stone crosses, and if at home, then wooden ones.
What are khachkars
Khachkars began to appear in Armenia probably from the middle of the 9th century, although Armenia adopted Christianity at the beginning of the 4th century. In the Noravank monastery you can see classical khachkars, Armenian crosses carved on stone (the stone is soft tuff, or durable basalt), they differ from the Russian cross familiar to us in that it blooms at the edges. They do not have an upper crossbar and a lower oblique crossbar, as over any Russian or Greek temple.
Khach is the cross, kar is the stone. Literally a stone cross. The tradition of carving vishaps, which developed several thousand years ago, was rethought in Christian times and the vishaps became cruciform. In the Noravank monastery, for example, in the open air there are such cultural monuments of the 14th century by the stone carver Momik, revered like ours by Andrei Rublev. Crosses like ours in Russia are worship crosses. In each monastery there used to be hundreds of them, they were plundered. Now the Armenians are more attentive to them, the most valuable are taken to museums.
In the Armenian temple, you will be surrounded, first of all, by the bas-reliefs carved in stone. A striking example is the khachkar from the Tatev monastery, which is located in the southeast of the country, about 250 km from Yerevan, already closer to the border with Iran.
Each monastery in Armenia is decorated with hundreds of such crosses. The mythological archetype of venerating sacred stones is present in many cultures.
By the way, in Moscow there are khachkars, there is even one ancient. If you know in Moscow there is an Armenian Cathedral on Trifonovskaya Street, opened in 2013. Long before its opening, the Armenian patriarch Garegin II Nersesyan presented the city of Moscow with such a 14th-century khachkar, brought from Sevan, and there are two modern khachkars. One of them is located on the site near the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. In 2001, the 1700th anniversary of Armenian Christianity was celebrated, then Patriarch Alexy II traveled to Echmiadzin - the holy city of Armenians, like Sergiev Posad here. There are also Armenian maidens and khachkars in the Russian Church of the Great Ascension, where Pushkin was married on Nikitskaya Street.
Honoring water
The gods of water, the spirits of water, as well as vishaps in Christian times, acquire a different meaning. The water spirits become holy springs. Such holy water can be drunk in the Lori principality, in the gorge of the Dzoraget River in the north of the country, where there are mountains. Medieval bridge, completely authentic, real. The Dzoraget River flows and is a real sacred spring, indeed it is healing, mineral. It's a whole adventure - to go down and get some water from it.
Lake Sevan (the main water element of Armenia) and the 9th century Sevanavank monastery, which is located on its banks. On Sevan in the 10th century, the commander Ashot II Iron defeated the Turks and after that united Armenia under his rule.
On the shores of Sevan today there is a theological seminary "Vazgenyan", similar to Tbilisi. In the Soviet years, however, it was closed. By the way, since we remember the Tiflis Seminary, then you probably remember that Stalin studied there, but did not finish it. Formally, he was expelled for not showing up for exams, but in reality because of his Marxist convictions. And he subsequently got along with the same expelled from the seminary "Vazgenyan". It was Mikoyan.
In general, many revolutionaries came out of seminaries in those years. There was such a historical anecdote, or rather a real story. Not long before the war, when the generals made a report to Stalin and his associates that everything was fine with our defense, and that if the Germans attacked, then everything would be fine. And here Stalin interrupts the general, whose father was a priest, in mid-sentence and says:
- And you, comrade general, your father is a priest, why didn't you go as priests?
The general says that he is a communist, that he did not want to. And Stalin answers him:
- You didn’t want to, but Comrade Mikoyan and I wanted to be in the priests, but they didn’t take us there.
What does an Armenian temple look like?
For example, Sevanavank.
If we look at the appearance of a traditional Armenian temple, it looks somewhat different than the appearance of a Greek-type temple, which includes Russian churches. Due to some peculiarities of the doctrine, the Armenian temple is distinguished not only by the almost complete absence of icons, iconography, but also by a different altar. In a Russian or Greek temple, in a Georgian one too, the altar is separated from the main part of the temple by a huge wall of icons, an iconostasis. In the Armenian tradition, instead of the iconostasis, there is a curtain that slides when there is no service. The curtain and steps are like not a stage, in the center there is again a Khach - a cross and an icon "Blessed Heaven". This is how a traditional Armenian altar looks like.
If you remember, for example, in Israel, in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher - the temple of three religions, there is an Orthodox altar, in the middle, a Catholic one, and an Armenian one to the right. And they all have their own specifics, they all differ from each other.
Pre-Christian religions in Armenia
Before Christianity, there was paganism in Armenia, originating from the Indo-European religion. There is such an interesting version that all, at least, European pagan religions, and not only European ones, go back to one ancient pro-religion, where a single god was worshiped. Not polytheism, but monotheism. The most ancient monotheism, wrote about this, for example, Alexander Men. He even had a dissertation on these remnants of monotheism in ancient cultures. In science, this version is called pramonotheism, the most ancient monotheism, the most ancient monotheism.
There are echoes of monotheism in all cultures. For example, the ancient Greek supreme god Zeus is similar in function to the Roman Jupiter. Jupiter is consonant even with Old Slavic - Perun. Or the Indo-European, even pre-Indian Vedic god Varuna. And over all of them there was once a very ancient god, a single god Dyaus - Pitar, i.e. Heavenly Luminous Father. The name "Zeus" is from here, hence the Greek word "teus" used in Christianity, or "deus" in Latin - god. And Peter, the pator, is the father. Jupiter, respectively, among the Romans, among the Greeks, Zeus and among the Persians, the god Ahura-Mazda. We have mentioned Zoroastrianism.
The Persians, the Sassanian Empire, tried to plant Zoroastrianism on the Armenians when the Armenians professed Christianity.
The Armenians converted to Christianity in 301 AD. But in the middle of the 5th century, in 451, the Sassanian empire sent troops in order to suppress and plant Zoroastrianism in such a province striving for independence. The Armenian commander, the hero of the Armenian people Vardan Mamikonyan, who among the Armenians plays about the same role as Alexander Nevsky, in response to the two hundred thousandth army of the Persians managed to collect only sixty thousand Georgians, Caucasian Albanians and others, and the so-called Avarayr battle took place. It happened on the territory of modern Iran. Northern Iran, there is even a village there, where the Avarayr field is nearby. The Armenians were defeated on the battlefield, but they resisted so fiercely that they caused significant damage to the enemy, then they went on to a guerrilla war, hiding in fortresses. As a result, the Persians abandoned their further plans for the political and religious enslavement of Armenia. The Persian commanders refused to fight because they had to ruin the country, that this was not welcomed by the Zoroastrian religion.
451 was an important year for the history of the Armenian Church, this is the date from which the split of the Armenian Church and the Orthodox Church began.
According to this version of Pramonotheism, with which it was difficult for Marxists to argue. Engels even wrote about this, this is such a strong version. There was a Catholic priest, Wilhelm Schmidt, who wrote a twelve-volume work in which he showed that in all cultures, in all religions that he could only find, there are remnants of ancient monotheism. And among the Armenians, like everyone else, the veneration of a single god began, as it were, to split, break apart. First, the mother goddess appeared. God alone remained the god of heaven, the god of thunder. Then the god of war began to depart from him. Goddess - mother, damp earth - this is our plot, Slavic. Everything comes from there, and for the Armenians this also happened. The ancient single Dyaus - Pitar, who in the Zoroastrian version was revered as Ahura Mazda, a good god in a literal translation,became one of the characters of the already Hellenized Armenian pagan pantheon. Gods are ditsy, in Armenian.
The Armenian pantheon began to take shape about 2500 years ago. Paganism was Hellenized. And many Armenian gods, as was the case throughout the ancient world, found parallels in Greek or Hellenic paganism or the Middle East. Ahura Mazda began to be called Aramazd, this is an analogue of Zeus. Or Goddess - mother, a common Armenian name, goddess Anahit.
The goddess who corresponded in the Greek pantheon to Artemis or the moon goddess Diana. Goddess, patroness of fertility, cultivation of the land, labor, patroness of mothers, she was prayed for in case of illness, according to one version, a daughter, according to another - the wife of this Aramazd. The ancient monotheism, it first splits into two, then the whole mass of these endless deities that we can find in modern Hinduism appear, there are a million of them, these gods.
The name Anahit, despite the fact that everyone knows that this is the name of a pagan goddess, it is still popular. By the way, the goddess Anahit, like Aramazd in ancient times, in pre-Christian times, had many sanctuaries. Today, only one pagan sanctuary of pre-Christian times of the god Helios or the god Mihr in the Armenian version has survived.
Here I will cite a quote from the historian Strabo, who writes about the specifics of the veneration of Anahit in the state of Great Armenia: “The cult of Anahit is held in special esteem among the Armenians, who built sanctuaries in honor of this goddess in different places. They were dedicated here to serve the goddess of slaves and slaves. The most famous people of the tribe also dedicate their daughters to the goddess as girls. It is customary for the latter to marry only after they have given themselves away for money in the temple of the goddess for a long time, and no one considers it unworthy to marry such a woman. Temple prostitution, which, as far as I know, still exists in India.
Or there was such a Sophenian kingdom, one of the Armenian-speaking kingdoms in the territory that was later united into Great Armenia, where Anahit was considered the patroness of one of the mountains, and there was a statue near this mountain, and there was a sanctuary. One of the sisters, from the parallels of the goddess Anahit, is the Middle Eastern goddess Ishtar. All the sanctuaries of different gods, there were about 10 of them, were destroyed as soon as Armenia adopted Christianity. This happened during the reign of Tsar Trdat III.
The only preserved to this day on the territory of the entire former USSR, an ancient-type temple dedicated to the god Helios (Mihr) was reconstructed near Yerevan in the Soviet 60s-70s, it existed unchanged until the 17th century until it was destroyed by an earthquake, all other pagan sanctuaries were destroyed by the same Trdat III.
In the canyon of the Azat River, there are such stone formations that look like organ pipes, and there is also a temple built by King Trdat I in the 1st century AD. A tablet was found near this temple during archaeological excavations with a text where the founder of the temple, King Trdat, praises the god Helios. There was a statue of the god Helios in the temple. Probably, human sacrifices also took place. In ancient times, it is not a secret for anyone, human life was worth very little. Why has the temple survived to this day? There was the residence of the Armenian kings and already in Christian times there was a fortress. Favorable location at a crossroads, the river defended the fortress and therefore the fortress was not destroyed. There, literally next to the temple, there are the remains of the ruins, the ruins of the palace. It was such a summer residence of Armenian kings,and it survived until the middle of the 17th century.
Mithraism in Armenia
So, the temple of Helios, Mihra. Mihr is an Armenian version of Helios. This is in tune with Mithraism. What is this god, the god Mihr? Three Armenian gods made up a triad: Aramazd, a descendant of the ancient single god, the goddess Anahit and such a hero like Hercules - Vahagn, who fought against vishaps. Vishaps at that time annoyed people, let wild animals into the villages, and he fought with these lions and defeated them. Even, by the way, there is a monument to this Vahagn in Yerevan. According to another version, Mihr was the third in the triad. There was also the god Thor. Not the Thor that the Scandinavians have, but the other is an analogue of Apollo. The secretary or something, the scribe Aramazda taught writing at the temples of Torah. But usually the third deity was Mihr, whose cult has an interesting origin. This is Mithraism. In general, the god Mithra goes back to an even more ancient Vedic cult.
Before modern Hinduism emerged about 1500 years ago, before these many hundreds of gods that are there today, there was the ancient Vedic religion. It has existed for about 3000 years. The Vedas are the sacred writings of the Indo-Aryans, where the remnants of ancient monotheism can be traced. Against this background, numerous other gods appear. One of them is the revered god Mithra. God of sunshine, sun, contract, friendship. Actually, his name translates as friendship, as something that holds together. And if in the Vedic pantheon he was one of many, then, for example, in late antique times, at the same time when Christianity appeared, 2000 years ago, a little more, Mithraism, which has an eastern origin, became popular in the Roman Empire.
In the Roman Empire, in the Hellenistic world, no one believed in these gods. In all Zeus and others. Maybe you remember in the old Hollywood movie "Spartacus" there is an episode when Roman patricians go to sacrifice to their gods, then one asks the other - "Do you, in general, believe in them?" The second says - “I certainly don't believe in them. But, I'm a decent person."
It was simply believed that if a person honors the gods, makes sacrifices at least once a year, then he is a respectable citizen. How to have a passport now, then it was the norm to make a sacrifice to the emperor as to God. But since a thinking person always requires something more, Eastern religions became popular in the Roman Empire.
The Greek philosophers also had a kind of monotheistic habits. Xenophanes of Colophon, an ancient philosopher of the 5th century BC, said in his poems that “numerous gods, they are invented, because what kind of people, such are his gods. The Ethiopians have dark gods, the Greeks have curly ones. He writes that if horses had gods, they would look like horses. One God. The true God is one. Xenophanes, by the way, wrote that God is spherical, in the sense that he is perfect.
Why were there persecutions against Christians in those days, because the Roman government did not allow refusal to worship the emperor as a god. This was a violation of Roman law. The man showed that he was not loyal. When Christians refused to sacrifice to the Roman gods, they began to be executed not because they worship another god, but because they did not worship the Roman emperor or Zeus. These sacrifices were believed to ensure the prosperity of the Roman Empire. And one of such religions, which arose against this background, which has an oriental origin, and existed in Armenia, is Mithraism.
Mithra appears even in the ancient Indian pantheon and then at some point it turns into the supreme god of such a particularly interesting religion, which in many features is similar to Christianity, to Mithraism. For a time, in the first centuries AD, it even rivaled Christianity in popularity. And hundreds of temples of this religion, mithriums, are even in London, while in Rome there were dozens of them.
When Christian times had already come, the statues of Mithras and the statues of ancient gods simply began to call them by other names, Christian ones. There was the god Mithra, there was some kind of angel.
Mithraism offered something different from the ancient religions. First, the religion of monotheism, and secondly, posthumous retribution. If in ancient religions posthumous retribution, the posthumous fate practically did not depend on how a person lives, even the righteous, descending to Hades, inherited a fate much worse than this life. Some of the ancient authors even wrote that it is better to be a slave and beggar on earth than a king in Hades. Then Mithraism suggested, like Christianity, the idea that a person's fate depends on his deeds in this world. This god began to be worshiped initially in the east, in the eastern regions of the Roman Empire, in the Roman legions. The meetings of the Mithraists were like those of Christians.
In early Christian meetings, there were such common meals, and there was a breaking of bread, there was a rite of baptism - immersion in water. The Mithraists had something similar. Gatherings as a common meal. Initiation, initiation into religion is also through immersion in water. It seemed that religion was about to become widespread. Moreover, she spoke about the fact that people are equal to each other. Indeed, in antiquity, even the great philosopher Aristotle wrote that the Greeks and barbarians are people of different sorts.
Alexander the Great was the first to say that all people are equal, both Hellenes and barbarians, not like his teacher Aristotle. Mithraism, like Christianity, said that all people are equal before God. But there was only one reason why Mithraism never became as popular a religion as Christianity. Women were not allowed into this religion. Therefore, in the Roman army, this religion was popular, and outside of these men's, as it were, "parties" are not at all. Women also had their own religions, where only women were allowed. Because of this, Mithraism could not withstand the competition with Christianity and from somewhere in the 4th-5th century it began to move back to the east, the Mithrai temples began to decline. Now it is a relic religion, in the 5th century BC. she last figured somewhere in the region of Greater Armenia.
At the end of the conversation about pre-Christian times, we will mention another largest, of course, sacred point in the north of Turkey in the area of Lake Van. There is such a monument of Armenian antiquity Nemrut Dag, Mount Nemrut. Prince, king Antiochus I Theos (God) in the 1st century BC built a sanctuary for Aramazda, Anahit and Apollo. The complex on Mount Nemrut is a sanctuary surrounded by huge statues 8-9 meters high. The center of the tomb is a mound of small stones on the top of the mountain, 49.8 meters high and 150 meters wide at the base. Under the mound is the coffin of Antiochus I of Kommagensky. The edges of the rocky peak, on which the tomb is located, have been turned into large terraces on three sides. Such a place is very interesting. Northern Turkey, where in antiquity there were princedoms of Sofenskoe, Kommagenskoe. There are still a lot of monuments in this region of Turkish Armenia, but the Turks do not follow them, the temples.
For example, there is the Ani fortress, this is not a sacred point, but nevertheless. Now these former Armenian points are in a very neglected state.
The modern coat of arms of the Armenian Apostolic Church is the miter, the headdress of the clergy. There is clearly a Latin influence here. The bishops also have a miter. It has nothing to do with the god Mithra. This, apparently, is taken from the Catholics, although the Armenian Church is not Catholic in any way.
Armenian Christianity has its own interesting features, which, I repeat, distinguish it from the Orthodox Church, and even more so from the Catholic Church. Often people are not at all knowledgeable, when they hear the name of the Armenian Patriarch, who is officially called Catholicos, they think that Armenians are Catholics. Catholic or catholic, as it is pronounced in the east, means universal. The Armenian Patriarch, like the Georgian one, is universal for Armenians, but this does not mean that he is a Catholic. The Armenians have a small number of Catholics, of course, but they appeared, perhaps, in the 18th century, when the Catholics of Rome and the Vatican tried to arrange a union there, to draw the Armenian Church into their orbit. It succeeded only to a very small extent.
The Armenian Church belongs to a slightly different cultural and historical type of Christian churches. The Orthodox Church familiar to us, firstly, has Hebrew cultural roots, and secondly, it received a very strong Greek cultural root. Actually, if you look at the church lexicon, there are a lot of Greek words. Stavopidial monastery. "Stavros" in Greek is a cross. Autocephaly - auto, kyphos - chapter, and much more.
The Armenian Church and several other Christian churches, they have a different cultural root - the Middle East. They are now, as it were, formally in a schism with churches of the Greek type and with Orthodox churches. These churches are called scientifically "oriental". "Orientel" is Latin for oriental. East, this is very east. The Orthodox churches are also Eastern, but the Armenian Church is called Apostolic, and the Russian Orthodox Church is not Apostolic. The apostles did not reach Russia, and the true beginning of Christianity in Armenia is associated with the name of Gregory the Illuminator. In Armenian, his name is Surb Grikor Lusavorich. “Surb” is a saint, “Grikor” is Gregory, and the word “Lus” is a root in Armenian, consonant with Latin “lux” - light. Grikor Lusavorich was of royal origin, he is a distant relative of Tsar Trdat III,was the first major preacher of Christianity in Armenia, but since the king thought that Gregory the Illuminator wanted to get the throne, the king put him in a cave for 12 years. On the site of this cave is now the Khor Virap monastery, it is about 30 km from Yerevan against the background of Mount Ararat. Some guides take tourists almost to the Turkish border, where you can already hear the muezzin singing in the mosque.
In the Armenian tradition, there is such a plot that at some point Trdat III went blind. Having passed all the doctors, he was able to see his sight only by turning to Gregory the Illuminator, having been baptized. Gregory the Illuminator took his word from him that he would not only be baptized, but would overthrow all pagan centers, all temples. Which is exactly what he did. We mentioned that under Trdat III all the temples of Aramazd, Anahit and other gods were destroyed. Thus, the Armenian Church arose.
But what's the catch? The Armenians are often called Monophysites. Again, the Greek word. Monos, physis - one nature. Monophysites support the version that the nature of Christ is only divine. In Greek-type Orthodoxy (among the Deophysites), there are two natures in Christ - human and divine. The Armenian Church is often called Monophysites, but this is not entirely true. In terms of theology of the Greek churches, the Armenians are stuck between Monophysitism and Deophysitism. This is a difficult question, and in order to understand it, you need to know this terminology, know Armenian, Greek. The fact is that in the 451 year of the Avarair battle, when Vardan Mamikonian died on the battlefield, the 4th Ecumenical Council took place in Chalcedon, and it was there that it was decided that the Orthodox Church would adhere to the version that there are two natures. There were no representatives from Armenia at the council, there were no bishops. They had no time for this. There was a war. If only to preserve at least some Christianity. But when the decisions made at the Council reached them, they either translated them incorrectly, or did not understand due to the fact that they used a different philosophical methodology. The Greeks used Neoplatonism, and the Armenians, Latins used the methodology of Aristotle. And from that moment a split began. So with the Latin, Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church has been in schism for 1000 years. With the Armenian Church, despite the mental and cultural closeness, even more than 1500 years. But there were moments when the Christian world tried to reunite again, but finally, about 1000 years ago, the last attempts to return Armenians to the Greek Church failed and the Armenian Church entered the family of Middle Eastern oriental churches. In addition to the Armenian church, there is also an Egyptian church,Coptic, Ethiopian, Eritrean church, Syrian and there is still such in India, Malabar church. Six churches were of the Middle Eastern cultural type, which includes the Armenian Church. Despite religious contradictions, relations between Russians and Armenians have always been very good.
Etchmiadzin, the spiritual capital of Armenia, where the residence of the Catholicos is now. In 2001, 1700 years of Armenian Christianity were celebrated. Alexy II together with Armenian Patriarch Garegin II, even their headdresses are slightly different. They are not of the same type as the Russian, they look like an onion. Often, when they say now that Orthodox Christians are being killed in Syria, journalists do not know anything and often they do not see this difference. And often we are not talking about the Orthodox, but about the representatives of these Middle Eastern churches.
You know, there is such an anecdote. Question to Armenian radio - with whom does the Soviet Union border? The answer is that the Soviet Union borders on whomever it wants. Or, for example, which city is the capital of Armenians? Moscow. The presence of Armenians in Moscow has always been traditional and very long. The first mention of the Armenians in Moscow was in 1390, according to historical sources. Even the first Georgian settlement in Moscow appeared no earlier than 1725. The Georgian prince Vakhtang asked Peter II for permission to move with his retinue to Moscow, due to the wars. 400 families moved with him to Moscow. They were first given the Kitay-Gorod area, Staropansky Lane. But there was not enough space, the Poles still lived there, and the Georgians moved to Presnya. Together with the Georgians, there were also Armenians among this retinue of Prince Vakhtang. On Presnya, the first according to documents Armenian church appeared in Moscow. Although, I repeat,the first mention of the Armenians was back in 1390, when it was said in the annals of Moscow that "the house behind the Posad of Abraham, a certain Armenian, was on fire." And, possibly, there were Armenian temples in Kitay-gorod, i.e. in Moscow Posad, in other probably regions, but these are only guesses.
In general, Armenians, like Germans, began to appear in Russian cities ever since these cities began to arise. These two cultures have always accompanied Russians. And when Prince Vladimir came from Greece, when he was baptized either in Chersonesos or in Constantinople, he brought the Greek clergy in his retinue. The Armenians also came with the Greek clergy. And they lived in Kiev as a national minority. Historically, they were jewelers, doctors, artisans.
The first Armenian church is the Surb Mariam church, which was located exactly on the territory of the current zoo. Unfortunately, it was dismantled in the 1920s, when the zoo was being built. There is also a Georgian Orthodox church nearby, Bolshaya Gruzinskaya Street. I will also say that Armenian churches took root well in Moscow, for example, the Armenian temple of Surb Khach (Holy Cross) was located in the Armenian lane, where Armenians lived from the 17th century, and where in the 18th century he moved in with his retinue, before that was a nobleman at the Persian court, merchant Lazar Lazaryan. It was he who built the Surb Khach temple, which worked until the early 20s, until it was dismantled, unfortunately, and now there is a school in its place. The Armenian lane, however, retained its name, and even the Armenian embassy is located in Moscow in the building that was once an Armenian school, the main merchants Lazaryans,then the Lazarev Institute of Oriental Languages, where not only Armenians studied. For example, Ivan Turgenev and Stanislavsky studied there. There is also the Armenian Church of Surb Harutyun ("Holy Resurrection"). Accordingly, Harutyunyan, in Russian, is Voskresensky, and Khachaturian is Holy Cross. Opposite the Vagankovskoye cemetery, there is, as it were, the Armenian half, there is not only the cemetery itself, but also a small church, the only Armenian church in Moscow operating in the Soviet years, where both Armenians and Assyrians went. By the way, not so long ago, the Armenian chapel of St. George the Victorious appeared in Yasenevo, almost near the Moscow Ring Road, this is a rarity. They usually name the churches Surb Grikor, after their Gregory. There is also the Armenian Church of Surb Harutyun ("Holy Resurrection"). Accordingly, Harutyunyan, in Russian, is Voskresensky, and Khachaturian is Holy Cross. Opposite the Vagankovskoye cemetery there is, as it were, the Armenian half, there is not only the cemetery itself, but also a small church, the only Armenian church in Moscow operating in the Soviet years, where both Armenians and Assyrians went. By the way, not so long ago, the Armenian chapel of St. George the Victorious appeared in Yasenevo, almost near the Moscow Ring Road, this is a rarity. They usually name the churches Surb Grikor, after their Gregory. There is also the Armenian Church of Surb Harutyun ("Holy Resurrection"). Accordingly, Harutyunyan, in Russian, is Voskresensky, and Khachaturian is Holy Cross. Opposite the Vagankovskoye cemetery there is, as it were, the Armenian half, there is not only the cemetery itself, but also a small church, the only Armenian church in Moscow operating in the Soviet years, where both Armenians and Assyrians went. By the way, not so long ago, the Armenian chapel of St. George the Victorious appeared in Yasenevo, almost near the Moscow Ring Road, this is a rarity. They usually name the churches Surb Grikor, after their Gregory.the only Armenian church in Moscow operating in Soviet times, where both Armenians and Assyrians attended. By the way, not so long ago, the Armenian chapel of St. George the Victorious appeared in Yasenevo, almost near the Moscow Ring Road, this is a rarity. They usually name the churches Surb Grikor, after their Gregory.the only Armenian church in Moscow operating in Soviet times, where both Armenians and Assyrians attended. By the way, not so long ago, the Armenian chapel of St. George the Victorious appeared in Yasenevo, almost near the Moscow Ring Road, this is a rarity. They usually name the churches Surb Grikor, after their Gregory.
There are about 1000 monasteries and temples in Armenia, and all of them, most, at least except for Yerevan, have a long history. In Yerevan, the main temple, which, in theory, should play the same role as ours of Christ the Savior, the temple of Gregory the Illuminator is of little interest, just huge, modern, of the 2000s.
Temple of Pogos-Petros (Peter and Paul in Russian), its khachkars are decorated. The Caucasian type of the temple differs from the familiar Greek or Russian. They are ribbed, there are no rounded parts. They are always so square, faceted. Why? Yes, because there is a seismic region, and such a temple is still easier to resist. Temple of Saint Gayane in Etchmiadzin. Gayane is another character in the history of Christianity. Among those who were ordered to be executed by Tsar Trdat III, when he was still a pagan, were the holy virgins Gayane and Hripsime. The city of Echmiadzin is the sacred capital of Armenia. It may not be the most picturesque church complex, but there is the residence of the Catholicos and several ancient temples of the 10th century.
Georgian churches are the same, they are similar on the outside, but different on the inside. Or, for example, there is Zvartnots airport, and there are wonderful, historical ruins of the Zvartnots temple on the road from Yerevan towards Echmiadzin. Once there was a three-tiered cone-shaped temple of the Heavenly Vigilant forces. The ruins of Zvartnots, destroyed by the Turks, began to be restored back in the pre-revolutionary years, now there is a museum there.
Lost in the mountains Geghard monastery, Spear monastery. Where is one of the shrines of the Armenian Church kept - the spear with which the centurion Longinus pierced the rib of Christ. Blood and water flowed from there. There are, however, several of them. Europe also has spears, some kind of real one.
Kurds in Armenia
If we go northeast from Yerevan towards Sevan to the place where the ancient temple of Helios stands, then directly from it in the distance we will see the Geghard monastery, where in the mountains, above a stone valley that is teeming with snakes (they creep out on hot days right in tourist places to cool in the shade of temples), Kurds live. This is a different nationality. Who is it? These are the Turkic tribes who migrated from the Ottoman Empire in the 18th century, since it was impossible to practice anything other than Islam in the Ottoman Empire. And they profess their specific religion, Yezidism. Kurds are Yezidis. Kurds are nationality, Yezidis are religion.
Photo: Andrey Linkevich
They usually live in villages. More precisely, they live in the winter in the lowlands, in the villages, usually, and from May they go to the mountains, graze sheep. True, they are considered by Christian and Muslim critics to be Satanists. There are some moments, although I saw even khachkars in their villages. I don't know how they got there. Maybe the khachkars were nearby, and they brought them to them. Maybe they have already converted to Christianity? They do not understand Russian absolutely. You can find Armenians in Yerevan who do not speak Russian, but this is rare. Russian is better spoken in Tbilisi. But the Kurds in the villages, they generally don't know two words. Only through the Armenians can you communicate with them.
Yezidism originated in the 11th century AD. It was founded by a certain Sheikh Adi. This is also a religion of monotheism. They still live in these army-type tents. If we go to the foothills of Mount Aragats, there, like in Egypt or Israel, the Bedouin tribes live local Armenian Bedouins - Kurds. Remember, the crime boss grandfather Khasan was killed several years ago. So he was a Kurd. And when he was "buried", there was present a Yezidi priest. Their spiritual center is located in Iraq, not far from the city of Mosul - Lalesh, the temple of Yezidism. The Kurds worship a single god and along with him 7 angels, the supreme of whom is Malak Tavus, or vice versa Tavusi Malak, is depicted as a peacock with a loose tail. Therefore, peacocks always live near Yezidi temples. There is also a Kurdish temple in Armenia.
Lalesh is in Iran, and in Armenia the Yezidi temple is located in the west behind Etchmiadzin. It appeared not so long ago, several years ago.
The sacred scripture of the Kurdish Yezidis, it is not recorded in the texts, like the Bible or the Koran, but is in the oral state, and since there are fewer carriers every year, they simply dissolve, assimilate, accept other religions, it is very difficult to study religion. It is little studied, Yezidism. You cannot turn to Yezidism, you can only be born, as in Hinduism or Judaism, the Jewish religion. There is also a caste system, as in Hinduism. Feasts, sheikhs. Feasts are the clergy, sheikhs, as it were, princes and people. There are very few feasts and sheikhs, there are more people, as always.
Molokans in Armenia
So Kurds are the second nationality and the second religion in Armenia. Not Russians. The Russians mostly left there in the 90s. Almost no one was left. Basically, the Russians in Armenia are not the descendants of the Soviets, but the descendants of the pre-revolutionary Russians. Who are they? This is also a religious minority - the Molokans. Molokans, to put it simply, are extremely Old Believers, like the Baptists, but even more extreme. When the Old Belief arose, it immediately, like Protestantism, split into many directions. And the most extreme, who denied the clergy, icons, they don't even have crosses, they don't even cross themselves, they were considered a malicious sect. They refused to take up arms when there were wars, so there were cases, there was some episode, it seems from some regular Russian-Turkish wars,Molokans and Dukhobors were ordered to take up arms and go to fight, to which they said that they were pacifists (in the current language) and would not go.
Nicholas I gave them the opportunity to practice their religion for them, but ordered them to move to the outskirts of the Empire. And Molokan villages appeared in Georgia, in Armenia, in the Stavropol Territory, in the Ukraine, in the Crimea. And, by the way, the first Russian Baptist to be baptized by faith was a former Molokan headman. They have no priests; their role is played by elders. In Georgia, in the Kura River, Nikita Voronov was baptized with several ascetics. He was a Molokan, became a Baptist. Modern writer Alexander Prokhanov is a descendant of the Molokans. His great-uncle was the famous Baptist leader Ivan Stepanovich Prokhanov in the early 20th century, in the 1920s. He was Russia's chief Baptist shortly before the revolution and for a while after. And before him, the main Baptist of Russia was also an interesting person Vasily Aleksandrovich Pashkov, who was a great benefactor. He is still revered by some of the Baptists.
And even there is such a subspecies of Baptists - Pashkovites. Pashkov was a philanthropist, and he helped ordinary people, peasants. But these are Baptists of Western origin, they lived in the 17th century, and the Russian Molokans are extreme Old Believers. There are many similarities. They are more likely not even like Baptists, but like Anabaptists, descendants of Germanic settlers of the 18th century in America.
Before modern Baptism emerged, so more moderate, first a militant sect of Anabaptists was formed, which in the peasant war in Germany in 1525 played a certain sacred role. They were expelled from Europe at the end of the 18th century. And until now in America in the state of North Dakota they speak German. These anishes live there, they still do not use electricity, they have candles and ride horses. The most consistent, the most extreme of them live in the same way as our Molokans.
The Armenian Molokans retained the Russian language, they did not mix with the Armenians, there are few of them, there are several thousand left. Three villages in Armenia where they live: Pushkino, another Lermontovo, and the third Fioletovo.
Islam in Armenia
Islam in Armenia dominated during the period of feudal fragmentation. Armenia began to disintegrate into principalities. It was then that the statehood in the form of Great Armenia fell into decay. And these principalities began to be conquered one by one by the Seljuk Turks.
And as a result, by the beginning of the 19th century, even by the end of the 18th century, all Armenia turned into the Erivan Khanate. And only in 1827, after numerous attempts, did the Russian troops, led by General Ivan Paskevich, manage to capture the Erivan fortress. The Turkmanchay peace treaty was signed, according to which part of Armenia became part of the Russian Empire.
The painting by the artist Franz Roubaud "The capture of the Erivan fortress by the Russian troops" reminds of the fact that then there were a lot of mosques. Mention is made of at least 8, perhaps 10 mosques in Erivan and dozens, almost 60 in the surrounding area. Now there is only one mosque in Yerevan, which has survived to this day, the rest were dismantled during the Soviet years, the so-called Blue Mosque. It is quite picturesque and houses a museum. By the way, the guide to the museum in the mosque is an Armenian aunt, a Christian. In the arches, there are museum pieces, ceramics, etc. The only mosque and almost the only Muslim monument.
There is another Muslim monument not far from Yerevan, closer to the airport. It is quite difficult to find it, the mausoleum of Pir Hussein. The Muslim prince Hussein built a mausoleum in his honor in the 15th century. The Arabic script has been preserved and is being studied at this mausoleum.
Manichaeism in Armenia
Gnosticism was one of the serious religious realities of the late antique world on the territory of Armenia. The Greek word for gnosis is knowledge. Any traditional religion of a non-Gnostic type does not hide knowledge about itself, you may not be a follower of Christianity or Islam, or something else, but you can read anything about it. Gnostic religions say that there is secret knowledge that is available only to initiates and initiates into this secret knowledge in a closed circle, in an atmosphere of secrecy. Christianity brought with it a large layer of plots; on this basis, Gnosticism became, as it were, a new form of understanding. And so Gnostic talk was also present in Armenia. And the most famous Gnostic religion, it even at some point almost became a world religion, this is Manichaeism. There was a prophet Mani who lived in the 3rd century AD. e. He was of royal origin.
Mani's father was a prince in the Sassanian Empire, Patik. He was so tolerant, multi-religious. In such an atmosphere his son, Mani, grew up, who declared that there were the prophets Buddha, Zarathustra, Christ, and he was following them. And that he collected all their best from them, and he is the last prophet. Muhammad later said about the same.
Mani may have been of Armenian origin. It turns out that the founder of the largest Gnostic religion was an Armenian. Almost little is left of her. Little of her scripture has survived. It was such a Gospel from Mani.
The only temple of Manichaeism remained in China.
Gnosticism of a different kind was also present in Armenia. There was a sect of Tondraki in Armenia, such social Christians. Something also like the Baptists, only in antiquity. Another sect of the Gnostics was on the territory of present-day Turkey. In one of the cities (in Cappadocia, just from where the great Cappadocians, Christian saints later came out), there was a certain teacher named Constantine, who founded his own version of Gnosticism.
Cappadocian Constantine argued that slaves should be freed, that all people are equal, regardless of social origin. That women and men are equal. Then, icons were denied, like the Baptists now, hierarchies, clergy. Very much like Protestants. And the teaching of Constantine became very popular. It was called Pavlikianism. They considered themselves to be followers of the apostle Paul.
Constantine, he identified himself as his worshiper and took the name Saul, as the apostle Paul at baptism. And even for some time the Byzantine emperors had to fight with this eastern outskirts, with the Pavlikians. On the territory of Turkey, in one of the cities, they even created a state such a theocratic, sacred state, where the Greeks sent their spies. One of them, a learned monk, who, after living with them for several months, described this religion. It has survived to this day.
But, over time, the Byzantine emperor Vasily I defeated them, but they did not completely dissolve, but migrated to Europe. If you remember such medieval heretical movements as Catharism, Albigensians, Bogomils, in Russia - Jews, these are the descendants, followers of those who adopted the ideas of the Armenian Pavlikians.
Armenian Apostolic Church
Let's take a modern map of Armenia and mark the sacred centers. Yerevan, to the left of it the spiritual center is Etchmiadzin, 30 km. Echmiadzin, aka Vagharshapat. Echmiadzin is the name of the monastery, Vagharshapat is the city. There is the monastery of Surb Echmiadzin, possibly founded during the reign of Gregory the Illuminator, and today is the residence of the Armenian Catholicos.
The Armenian Church has a rather peculiar system of hierarchy. There is a Patriarch, both in Echmiadzin and in Constantinople, there is a Patriarch in Jerusalem. Moreover, the main one is in Armenia. This is a very important clergyman, and even a political one.
The leading oppositionist did not listen to the admonitions of the Patriarch when there were regular unrest, attempts to arrange a Maidan, and therefore the Armenians turned their backs on him. Disobedience to the Patriarch is impossible for Armenians. About 7-8 million ethnic Armenians live in different countries of the world, less than 3 million live in Armenia, they adhere to the Armenian Church. There are Armenians of the Apostolic Church, there are Armenians Catholics, they simply use the Armenian rite, the Armenian language in worship, they go here in Moscow to the Catholic Cathedral. And there are the Chalcedonian Armenians, the Orthodox. Not those that have been converted in our time, but which have survived from that time. In Moscow, the Armenians - Chalcedonites go to the Cathedral of St. Basil the Blessed because there is one of the 10 chapels of the temple, dedicated to Gregory of Armenia.
There is an Armenian street in Kazan, there has always been an Armenian diaspora, also merchants, all over the Volga region. When surrounded by Muslims, when a Russian and an Armenian meet, they will not argue that their churches are somehow different from each other. They will consider themselves co-religionists. When Ivan the Terrible, his troops stormed Kazan, the Armenians deliberately shot past from the cannons, shot over their heads, so that the Russians would be more convenient to capture Kazan. And Ivan the Terrible ordered one of the altars in St. Basil's Cathedral to be dedicated to Gregory of Armenia. The Chalcedonian Armenians go to this temple in Moscow. Once a year, prayers to Gregory the Illuminator are held there.
There are a lot of monasteries in Armenia itself. Tatev is a monastery on such a stone island. Such a stone island made of colorful stones. The world's largest reversible cable car leads there. Once the prince of Syunik, one of the local princes, in the 10th century tried to found the largest temple in Armenia, the beautiful temple of Surb Ponos-Petros.
Temple of the Bagratuni family. There is the Amberd fortress, next to it is a typical ribbed Armenian temple. Most of the temples are active, they hold services. But, it is true, Armenians go to churches a little. When I, first time in Yerevan, went to the Armenian church to see the service, I was surprised, because the services are very short. 20-30 minutes is an evening service. Sunday liturgy for a maximum of 1 - 1.5 hours.
But all the churches are functioning, they are in order, the altars are standing, only services are rare. Armenians do not go to churches much. In Russia they go to churches more, especially in Moscow. In Armenia, mostly women go to church. But any Armenian is the first thing that you will remember that Armenia was the first to adopt Christianity as a state religion. This is an important foundation of the Armenian national identity, the Armenian Church.
Vyacheslav Terekhov