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548 with the title of abbot. This was at Modan in the Morea, then under Venetian rule. The conquest of the peninsula by the Turks led Mechitar and his monks to migrate in the year 1715 to Venice, where the Senate granted them the island of St. Lazaar. This monastery became an important centre of scholarship, and the monks devoted themselves to the spread of Armenian literature and education. The Cœnobite Armenian monks of the national Church follow a form of the rule of St. Basil; those who live a hermit life belong to an order of St. Anthony.

When Constantinople fell into the hands of the Turks ( 1453), the Armenian bishop of Brusa was appointed patriarch by Mohammed, and put under the patronage and control of the Ottoman government in a similar way to that in which the Greek patriarch was treated. He became the political head of his nation, and through his bishops he was made responsible for the government of his people, with authority in civil as well as in religious matters. For this purpose the Christian population was divided into communities called millets. The patriarch was supported by a council of bishops and clergy, and each bishop was set over his own province. The result was the same as among the Greeks. The Church was degraded by being made subject to chief clergy who were also officials of the Turkish government, and slavish sycophancy prevailed among these officials themselves. Still, the Armenians gained something in having a legal constitution under guardians of their own nationality. At first this only applied to the Western Armenians, who had been involved in the fall of the Byzantine Empire; but in the year 1514 the Osmanli Turks under Selim conquered Armenia proper, and Idris the historian, a Kurd from Biltis, was then entrusted with the task of organising the province. In order to hold the district effectually, he transplanted into it a number of people of his own nationality. Thus from this time onwards the population of Armenia has been mixed, consisting mainly of the two races—Armenians and Kurds. Therefore, while on the one hand many Armenians have