Ashkhen

Ashkhen was the queen of Armenia, in the second half of the third century and the first half of the fourth; she is venerated as a saint in Armenia, in connection with the fortress of Garni.

She was of Sarmatian stock, the daughter of the king of the Alans, Ashkatar. She married in 297 Tiridates III, who reigned as a vassal king of Armenia under Roman authority from 287 to 330. The Armenian state religion was then Zoroastrianism. They had three children: Khosrov III, Salome and another daughter, married to Saint Husik I, one of the first catholicoi of the Armenian Church. According to the legend, after Tiridates killed a group of Christians, the nuns of Hripsime, he lost his reason. Ashkhen and Khosrovidukht, Tiridates's sister, had already been converted through the efforts of those nuns and other Christians. Gregory the Illuminator healed Tiridates of his madness, and the king was converted and made Christianity the official religion of Armenia. Gregory afterwards baptized the family of Tiridates, including Ashkhen, the court and the army, on the banks of the Euphrates. Ashkhen and Khosrovidukht gave their jewels toward the building of the churches of Saint Gayane and Saint Hripsime. Toward the end of her life, Ashkhen withdrew to the castle of Garni with Khosrovidukht.

Ashkhen, Tiridates and Khosrovidukht are saints of the Armenian Apostolic Church, and their feast is kept on the Saturday after the fifth Sunday after Pentecost, usually around 30 June. The veneration is Armenian; it is not a canonization by the synodal Orthodox Church.