Origins and history

Various legends tie the origin of the Armenian Church to the Apostles. Apostolic succession is an important concept for many churches, especially those in the east. The legend of the healing of Abgar V of Edessa by the facecloth of Jesus has been appropriated by the Armenian Church by claiming that Abgar was a prince of Armenia.The more common tradition claims that Thaddaeus, one of the Seventy Apostles was sent to Armenia from nearby Edessa by Abgar (uncle of King Sanatrook of Armenia) to evangelize. The details of the story vary widely, but in all stories Thaddeus converted Sandookdht, the king's daughter. In some versions Sanatrook was also converted, but later apostasized. In other versions, he was never converted, but was always hostile to Christianity. In any case, Sanatrook martyred both Thaddeus and Sandookdht. Some versions have the apostle Bartholomew arriving in Armenia about the same time to also be martyred. Though these stories are considered historically questionable by modern scholars, Christianity must have reached Armenia at an early date as persecutions against Christians in 110, 230, and 287 were recorded by outside writers Eusebius and Tertullian.

The Kingdom of Armenia was the first state to adopt Christianity as its religion when St. Gregory the Illuminator converted King Tiridates III and members of his court, an event dated to AD 301 (after Mikayel Chamchian 1784) though now believed by most scholars to have occurred somewhat later, but by 313. Gregory, trained and ordained in Christianity at Caesarea returned to his native land to preach about 287, the same time that Tiridates III took the throne. Tiridates owed his position to the Roman Emperor Diocletian, a noted persecutor of Christianity. In addition, he became aware that Gregory was a son of Anak, the man who assassinated his father. Consequently Tiridates imprisoned Gregory in an underground pit, called Khor Virap, for 13 years. In 301, 37 Christian virgins, among which was Saint Nune (St. Nino for Georgia), who later became the founder or the Georgian Orthodox Church, fleeing Roman persecution, came to Armenia. Tiridates desired one of them, Rhipsime, to be his wife, but she turned him down. In a rage, he martyred the whole group of them. Soon afterward, according to legend, God struck him with an illness that left him crawling around like a beast. (The story is reminiscent of Nebudchadnezzar in Daniel 4.) Xosroviduxt, the king’s sister, had a dream in which she was told that the persecution of Christians must stop. She related this to Tiridates, who released Gregory from prison. Gregory then healed Tiridates and converted him to Christianity. Tiridates immediately declared Armenia to be a Christian nation, becoming the first official Christian state.

Tiridates declared Gregory to be the first Catholicos of the church and sent him to Caesarea to be consecrated. Upon his return, Gregory tore down idol centers, built churches and monasteries, and ordained hundreds of priests and bishops. While meditating in the old capital city of Vagharshapat, Gregory had a vision of Christ coming down to the earth to strike it with a hammer. From the spot rose a great Christian temple with a huge cross. He was convinced that God wanted him to build the main Armenian church there. With the king's help, he did so, along the lines of what he saw in the vision at the spot he saw the hammer strike. He renamed the city Etchmiadzin which means "the place of the descent of the only-begotten". Initially the Armenian church participated in the larger church world. Its Catholicos was represented at the First Council of Nicea and the First Council of Constantinople. Although he could not attend the Council of Ephesus, the Catholicos Isaac Parthiev sent a message agreeing with its decisions.Under the jurisdiction of the church was also the Georgian Orthodox Church. It broke away from the Armenians and reunited with Eastern Orthodoxy in the early 7th century The Armenian Church began to retreat from the larger church world in 373 when King Pap appointed Catholicos Yusik without first sending him to Caesarea for commissioning.
Christianity was strengthened in Armenia by the translation of the Bible into the Armenian language by the Armenian theologian, monk, and scholar St. Mesrob Mashtots. Prior to the fifth century, Armenians had their own spoken language, but it was not written. The Bible and liturgy were in Greek. The Catholicos Sahak commissioned Mesrob to create an Armenian alphabet, which he completed in 406. Subsequently the Bible and liturgy were translated into Armenian and written down in its new script. The translation of the Bible, along with the translation of other works of history, literature and philosophy, caused a flowering of Armenian literature and a broader cultural renaissance.

Unlike the Bible used in other Eastern Churches, the Armenian Bible originally had 39 books in the Old Testament. What are commonly called the Apocrypha or Deuterocanonical books were not translated until the 8th century and not read in the churches until the 12th century.