Page:The History of Armenia - Avdall - Volume 1.djvu/407

 ��HISTORY OF ARM£NIA»

��had begun to practise the heterodox ceremonies of the Greeks. Johannes, to prevent their exam- ple from deluding others, enacted at this meeting five canons, and particularly called them to the notice of the faulty. First, he commanded that no water should be mixed with the wine used at the eucharist. Secondly, that no leaven should be put in the bread designed for sacred offerings. Thirdly, that the birth of Christ should not be celebrated as a new and distinct feast. Fourthly, that in the fasts, neither fish, oil, wine, eggs, nor butter, was to be made use of, except on the Saturdays and Sundays of Lent. Fifthly, that the Lord's Supper was never to be partaken of a Maundy Thursday. This deed of the officiating pontiff gained him such renown, that all ranks of people began to look upon him as a great man, and he usually went under the designation of the sage or the philoshopher. After a lapse of some time the proceedings of this meeting were published, and erroneously received, under the title of '' Account of a meeting, &c. called and superintended by Johannes, the great philosopher.'' A. D. 652. The Saracens having observed that the Ar- mioi! inenians had again submitted to the authority of the emperor, renewed their incursions into that country. By the intercession, however, of Vasak^

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