There is no satisfactory up-to-date work in any language on the Armenian
church. One of the most useful, although it contains some anachronisms,
was written by the Armenian patriarch of Constantinople, Malachia
Ormanian, The Church of Armenia. Her History, Doctrine, Rule,
Discipline, Liturgy, Literature, and Existing Condition (London, 1912).
A useful book, although written with a slight Protestant bias, is Leon
Arpee, A History of Armenian Christianity (N.Y., 1946). A more radical
Protestant position is presented by G.H. Chopourian, The Armenian
Evangelical Reformation. Causes and Effects (N.Y., 1972). A more benign
exposition of the Armenian Protestant movement is Vahan H. Tootikian,
The Armenian Evangelical Church (Detroit, 1982).
One of the earliest works in English, although not fully dependable, is
Paul Rycaut, The Present State of the Greek and Armenian Churches
(London, 1679), which is available in a 1970 facsimile reprint. A more
dependable early work, something of a classic, is E.F.K. Fortescue, The
Armenian Church (London, n.d. [c. 1872]). A rather good book, written
from the Roman Catholic point of view, is Aziz S. Atiya, History of
Eastern Christianity (London, 1967).
A valuable, although dated, work in Armenian dealing with the Armenian
catechism is Archbishop Khoren Narbey, A Catechism of Christian
Instruction (Istanbul, 1882). It appeared in an English edition in
Calcutta in 1898 and in an edition which was corrected and revised by
Archbishop Tiran Nersoyan was published in New York in approximately
1955.
There is no satisfactory general history of Armenia, although several
are useful. M.G. Nersisyan, ed., Istoriia armianskogo naroda (Erevan,
1980), is written from a Marxist point of view. A general work, based on
secondary sources, is Vahan M. Kurkjian, A History of Armenia (N.Y.,
1964), which contains a useful bibliography. Another general work, by an
outstanding scholar, is Sirarpie Der Nersessian, The Armenians (N.Y.,
1970). Useful in general, especially for the early period, is David
Marshall Lang, Armenia. Cradle of Civilization (London, 1970).
Armenian archeology is covered by Lang in Armenia, but the specialist
should consult a series of scholarly articles written by various Soviet
Armenian experts and translated from the Russian by Arlene Krimgold and
edited by Henry Field, Contributions to the Archeology of Armenia
(Cambridge, Mass., 1968). Boris B. Piotrovsky, Urartu, tr. by James
Hogarth (London, 1969), is a classic of good scholarship on the Urartian
period. A full, but not always accurate, history of early Armenia up to
the fifth century is the classical history by Moses of Khoren, History
of the Armenians, tr. by Robert W. Thomson (Cambridge, Mass., 1978),
which gives some insight into pre-Christian pagan Armenian religion.
More dependable in detail, perhaps, than Moses of Khoren is the not
readily identifiable author Agathangelos, who wrote Patmowtiwn hayots. A
facsimile reproduction of the 1909 Tiflis edition of this work is
available with an introduction by Robert W. Thomson (Delmar, N.Y.,
1980). An excellent English translation of this work is Agathangelos,
History of the Armenians, tr. and ed. by R.W. Thomson (Albany, N.Y.,
1976), which describes the pre-Christian pagan cults in Armenia and
gives the story of the conversion of Armenia to Christianity by Gregory
the Enlightener. Two carefully produced books which help to place
Armenia in the context of the ancient world are Malcolm A.R. Cooledge,
The Parthians (N.Y., 1967), and David Marshall Lang, The Georgians
(ICY., 1966).
A magisterial work on Armenian history in the early Christian era is
Nicholas Adontz, Armenia in the Period of Justinian, tr. and ed. by Nina
G. Garsoian, (Lisbon, 1970). Elishe, History of Vardan and the Armenian
War, tr. and ed. by Robert W. Thomson (Cambridge, Mass., 1982), gives
the classical account of the Armenian war for religious independence
against the Persians. It is an excellent source for understanding
Christianity in Armenia in the fifth century. The battle of Vardanantz
for religious freedom in Armenia was taking place at the same time as
the council of Chalcedon (451). For the Armenian attitude towards the
acts of the council see Bishop Karekin Sarkissian, The Council of
Chalcedon and the Armenian Church (N.Y., 1965). A little book useful for
its references is Karekin Sarkissian, A Brief Introduction to Armenian
Christian Literature (London, 1960).
An important source on the Arab period is Hovhannes Draskhanakertetsi,
Patmutiwn hayots (Delmar, N.Y. 1980), which is a facsimile reproduction
of the 1912 Tiflis edition, with an introduction by Krikor Maksoudian.
Also for the Arab period, but from the point of view of the Armenian
kingdom of Vaspurakan, see Thomas Artsruni, History of the House of the
Artsrunik, tr. and ed. by Robert W. Thomson (Detroit, 1985). An
interesting book on the influence of the Arabs on Armenian Christology
is Hagop A. Chakmakjian, Armenian Christology and Evangelization of
Islam. A Survey of the Relevance of the Christology of the Armenian
Apostolic Church to Armenian Relations with its Muslim Environment
(Leiden, 1965).
A brief but dependable book on the Armenians and Byzantium is Sirarpie
Der Nersessian, Armenia and the Byzantine Empire (Cambridge, Mass.,
1947). An excellent study of the Paulician heresy in Armenia can be
found in Nina G. Garsoian, The Paulician Heresy (The Hague, 1967).
The Mongol period is treated in a most valuable work by Grigor of Akanc,
History of the Nation of the Archers (Cambridge, Mass., 1954), which
contains the Armenian text edited with an English translation and notes
by Robert P. Blake and Richard N. Frye. Information about the life and
work of Mesrob Mashtots, the inventor of the Armenian alphabet, comes
chiefly from the classical historian Koriun, The Life of Mashtots (N.Y.,
1964). Gregory of Narek, Matean oghbergutean (Delmar, N.Y., 1981), comes
from the Bagratid period. This edition is in Armenian, a facsimile
reproduction of the 1948 Buenos Aires edition with an introduction by
James R. Russell.
An important comparative study of early
Armenian Christianity is Cyril Toumanoff, Studies in Christian Caucasian
History (Washington, 1963). Many insights can be gained for Armenian as
well as middle eastern history from Avedis K. Sanjian, Colophons of
Armenian Manuscripts, 1301-1480 (Cambridge, Mass., 1969). For the
Cilician period, a useful book is T.S.R. Boase, ed., The Cilician
Kingdom of Armenia (N.Y., 1978).
Armenian relations with other nations, cultures, and societies can be
studied best by tracing the paths of Armenian merchants and travelers.
Two excellent books on that subject are H.A. Manandian, The Trade and
Cities of Armenia in Relation to Ancient World Trade, Nina G. Garsoian,
tr. (Lisbon, 1965), and K.S. Papazian, Merchants from Ararat. A Brief
Survey of Armenian Trade Through the Ages (N.Y., 1979). A somewhat
controversial but insightful study of the dhimmi and the dhimma is Bat
Ye'or, The Dhimmi. Jews and Christians under Islam (London, 1985). An
excellent study of the Armenians and the Armenian church in the Ottoman
empire, a definitive source on Armenian rights and privileges over the
Holy Places in Jerusalem, is Avedis K. Sanjian, The Armenian Communities
in Syria Under Ottoman Dominion (Cambridge, Mass., 1965).
A magisterial study of the Eucharist, including the Armenian, showing
the fundamental similarity of the traditional forms is Dom Gregory Dix,
The Shape of the Liturgy (Philadelphia, 1945). A valuable bilingual
edition of the liturgy of the Armenian church, which is a definitive
source on current practice and which has a great deal of useful
information on all aspects of liturgical dress and utensils, is [Tiran
Archbishop Nersoyan], The Divine Liturgy of the Armenian Apostolic
Orthodox Church (N.Y., 1950). English editions of the other offices of
the church are also available.
A dependable overview of Armenian history, especially the genocide,
which touches on a few of the political aspects of modern Armenian
church history, is Christopher J. Walker, Armenia. The Survival of a
Nation (N.Y., 1980).
The American missionary activity in historic Armenia is covered by Frank
Andrews Stone, Academies for Anatolia (Lanham, Mass, 1984), Joseph L.
Grabill, Protestant Diplomacy and the Near East (Minneapolis, 1971), and
James B. Gidney, A Mandate for Armenia (Kent, Ohio, 1967). The first
year of the Armenian genocide is well substantiated in the collection of
documents by Viscount Bryce, The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman
Empire, 1915-1916 (London, 1916), which was edited by Arnold Toynbee,
but the most scholarly, brief treatment may be found in Vahakn N.
Dadrian, "The Naim-Andonian Documents on the World War I
Destruction of the Ottoman Armenians. The Anatomy of a Genocide,"
International Journal of Middle East Studies, 18, no. 3 (August 1986).
Richard G. Hovannisian, Armenia on the Road to Independence, 1918
(Berkeley, 1969), deals extensively with the short-lived Armenian
republic.
The sovietization of Armenia is covered in
Firuz Kazemzadeh, The Struggle for Transcaucasia (Oxford, 1951), and in
the somewhat dated book by Mary Kilbourne Matossian, The Impact of
Soviet Policies in Armenia (Leiden, 1962). There is no scholarly work
which deals objectively with the Armenian church during the Soviet
period. |
A Brief History of