Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/611

Rh of his church, he employs the somewhat vague terms in use before the Council of Chalcedon, not those stricter definitions which were in use afterwards ; he employs [ Greek ], for instance, in its pre-Chalcedonian meaning, not [ Greek ]. However occasioned, the separation was gradual ; Armenian bishops attended the 5th, Gth, and 7th oecumenical councils (2d of Constantinople, 553; 3d of Constantinople, GSO; 2d of Nictea, 788), and the church acknowledges the decrees of those councils as binding. Cut off from, the Eastern Church, the Armenian bishops became all the more closely identified with their native country, and kept alive patriotic feeling in times of great national distress. In spite of many national calamities, foreign domination, internal dissensions, and even banishment, the Armenian Church preserved its character, doctrine, and discipline mtil the middle of the 15th century, when great dissensions arose which resulted in a schism. These quarrels were occasioned by Jesuit missionaries, who endeavoured to make the Armenians adopt the doctrine, liturgy, and ceremonies of the Roman Church. They succeeded in prevailing upon a great number of the adherents of the Armenian Church to separate from the community and join the communion of Rome. The Catholic Armenians, as they are called, first became a separate community towards the end of the 16th century; their existence has proved a source of great weakness to the orthodox church, and through their exer tions the old persecutions were revived. This state of matters went on until the middle of the 18th century, when the patriarch sought and obtained the intervention of Peter the Great of Russia. Since then the Armenian Church has found shelter under the protection of Russia. There is a reformation now going on in the Armenian Church, and a Reformed Church has arisen, which seeks to ally itself with the Calvinist Churches of Europe and America.

2. Doctrines.—These are almost identical with those of the orthodox Greek Church. The Armenians accept the first three, and the fifth, sixth, and seventh oecumenical councils, denying that of Chalcedon only, but, as has been explained, they, in their authoritative documents, reject the Eutychian heresy, which that council was called to condemn. The chief source of information as to the doctrine is contained in the letter of Narses above referred to. They reject the Western addition of filioque to the Nicene Creed, and deny the distinctive doctrines of the Roman Church.

3. The Liturgy is said to date from the 1st century, and to have been founded on that of the Church of Jerusalem. St Gregory remodelled it, and introduced the Nicene Creed, using that edition which contains the damnatory clause, and adding a conclusion of his own. Prayers of John Chrysostom and of Basil the Great were introduced in 430 A.D. Prayers are said for the dead, and entreaty is made for the pardon of their sins, but the church does not believe in purgatory, nor admit of indulgences. The holy days are Sundays, the chief feasts observed in the Eastern Church, and ten national saints days. Christmas is celebrated on the Gth of January, on the day of the Epiphany, and not on the 25th of December.

4. Sacraments.—The Church of Armenia has the seven sacraments: baptism, confirmation, the eucharist, pen ance, ordination, marriage, and extreme unction, Bap tism is by immersion ; the child is immersed three times; it is then anointed with holy oil, is confirmed, and partakes of the eucharist in both elements. Confirmation is administered to children immediately after baptism. The eucharist is administered in both elements to all members of the church ; the bread is always unleavened, and the wine is not mixed with water. Confession must precede the partaking of the eucharist, save in the case of children under seven years of age. Penance consists of confession and fasting. Ordination is by anointing with the holy oil. The marriage service is almost the same as in the Greek Church. In extreme unction only priests are anointed with oil. Laity have the prayers said over them, but are not anointed.

5. The Clergy.—There is the threefold order—bishops, priests, and deacons ; and there are three degrees of episcopal rank—the archbishops (chief among whom is the patriarch or catholicos), the bishop, and the vartabed, or doctor of theology, who has frequently charge of a diocese, with episcopal functions. The clergy are further divided into the black and the white. The black clergy are monks, and are alone eligible for the higher clerical offices ; the white clergy include the parish priests and lower clergy. The clergy may marry before ordination, but not after ; and a priest s widow is not allowed to remarry. The priesthood is hereditary. During his father s or grand father s lifetime the heir may follow a secular calling ; but he must leave this and enter the priest s office on the death of the priest he is heir to. There are four patriarchs, who have their seats at Constantinople, Jerusalem, Sis, and Etchmiadzin. The clergy of all ranks are supported entirely by the free-will offerings of the people.

1em  ARMENIAN LANGUAGE. The Armenian or Haikan language is an offshoot of the Iranian branch of the Indo-Germanic family of languages. Its earliest stage is probably represented in the cuneiform inscriptions of Van, on which see Hincks, in Jour. 7?. Asiatic Soc., vol. ix. (1848), and ^lordtmann, in Zcitschrift d. deutschcnmorgenl. Gesellschaft, vol. xxvi. (1872). The existing literature of the Armenians dates from the 4th century, and is essentially and exclusively Christian. The translation of the Old Testament by Sahag Bartevatsi, and of the New by Miesrob, are among its oldest monuments. The dialect in which this version is written, and in which it is still publicly read in their churches, is called the old Armenian. The modern Armenian not only departs from the elder form by dialectic changes in the native elements of the language itself, but also by the great intermixture of Persian and Turkish words, which has resulted from the conquest and subjection of the country, and by the character of inversion in the structure of its sentences. Of its two principal dialects, the Western, spoken in Constantinople and Asia Minor, and the Eastern, spoken by the Armenians scattered over Tartary, Persia, and India, the latter approaches more nearly to the idiom of the ancient language. Accord ing to Philostratus ( Vita Ajwllonii, ii. 2), the Armenians had an alphabet of their own in the 2d century A.D., of which, however, no traces remain. The invention of the present alphabet is ascribed to Miesrob at the beginning of the 5th century; it is probably an amplification of the previous one upon the Greek system of arrangement, and consists of thirty-eight letters, the two last of which, 6 and f, were added after the 12th century. The order of writing is from left to right. The capital letters are used in inscriptions, and at the beginning of sentences and proper names. As to its phonetic elements, the Armenian language is rough and consonantal, with the accent on the last syllabic. It possesses no grammatical gender, except 