Gregory the Illuminator

Saint Gregory the Illuminator (in Armenian Grigor Lusavorich) brought Armenia to the Christian faith and was the first head of its Church, at the turn of the fourth century. The Orthodox Church honours him as a hieromartyr and equal to the apostles, and the Armenians call him the Illuminator because the light of the Gospel came to them through him. He is commemorated on 30 September.

Almost everything told about him comes from the History attributed to Agathangelos, written in the fifth century. It is a work of devotion more than of chronicle, so many details below are tradition, and historians debate several of them.

Origins and childhood

According to tradition, Gregory was born around 257 and was the son of Anak, a Parthian nobleman. Anak is said to have killed Khosrov, the Arsacid king of Armenia, after winning his trust. The Armenian nobles then put Anak to death together with his family. The infant Gregory escaped with the help of his nurse and was taken to Caesarea in Cappadocia, where he was raised among Christians and baptized.

Some modern scholars doubt this account and think Gregory may simply have been a Greek-⁠speaking Christian from the Roman borderlands, whose noble descent was added later. The tradition remains the Church's own story of him.

He married Mariam, and they had two sons, Vrtanes and Aristakes. After their birth the couple parted. According to the Orthodox synaxarion, Gregory was left a widower, and one son became a priest while the other withdrew into the wilderness as a monk.

Confession and the pit

Gregory returned to Armenia and entered the service of King Tiridates III, the son of the murdered Khosrov. His life says he wished to atone for his father's crime by faithful service. When the king commanded him to sacrifice to the goddess Anahit, he refused and confessed Christ.

Tiridates had him tortured at length. The Orthodox account speaks of being hung head downward, choked with foul smoke, and made to walk in iron sandals set with nails, while Gregory sang psalms. When the king learned that Gregory was the son of his father's murderer, he had him thrown into a deep pit near Artashat, now called Khor Virap, which means "deep dungeon."

Tradition says Gregory lived there for thirteen or fourteen years (some say fifteen), kept alive by a pious woman who lowered bread to him in secret, and strengthened by an angel.

The holy virgins and the king's conversion

During those years a company of Christian virgins, among them Hripsime and Gayane, arrived in Armenia, fleeing persecution. When Tiridates desired Hripsime and she refused him, he had her and her companions put to death, about thirty-⁠five women in all. Soon afterwards the king fell into a terrible madness, which the tradition says resembled that of Nebuchadnezzar. His sister Khosrovidukht saw a vision that Gregory alone could heal him.

Gregory was drawn out of the pit. He first asked after the bodies of the martyrs, which had lain unburied, and buried them with honour. Then he preached Christ to the people and prayed for the king. Tiridates was healed, repented, and was baptized with his court and army. The traditional date is 301, though modern scholars prefer a date nearer 314. Armenia thus became the first kingdom to make Christianity its state religion.

Bishop of Armenia

Gregory travelled to Caesarea, where Leontius, the archbishop, consecrated him bishop of Armenia. Back in his homeland he baptized the king and a great multitude in the Euphrates, destroyed pagan temples and raised churches in their place, ordained priests, and founded schools where children, among them sons of former pagan priests, were taught in Greek and Syriac.

According to Agathangelos, Gregory saw a vision in which Christ descended and struck the ground with a golden hammer at Vagharshapat. A church was built there over the places where the virgin martyrs were venerated, and the site was later called Etchmiadzin, "the descent of the Only-⁠Begotten." It remains the seat of the Armenian Catholicos.

The conversion of the whole nation was in fact a slower work than the History suggests, and it continued after Gregory's lifetime.

His last years and his sons

Gregory made his younger son Aristakes his successor and withdrew to live as a hermit in a cave in the district of Daranalis in Upper Armenia. Aristakes took part in the First Council of Nicaea in 325. According to the Armenian historian Movses Khorenatsi, after the bishop's return from that council Gregory was not seen again. He died in seclusion, and shepherds who did not know who he was buried him. Historians place his repose around 328 to 331.

His descendants, called the Gregorids, held the leadership of the Armenian Church by inheritance for generations, until the fifth century.

Relics and veneration

Later his body was moved to a village in the region of Erzincan, and in the course of the following centuries his relics were scattered. Several sees claim parts of his right arm; the Armenian Catholicosates use it to bless the holy myron. Fragments are kept on Mount Athos at Karakallou, Iviron, and Gregoriou, which claims the skull. According to Catholic tradition, nuns fleeing iconoclast persecution brought relics to Naples, where the church of San Gregorio Armeno was built; parts were later returned to the Armenian Church.

Veneration of Gregory spread in Byzantium from the ninth century, and a mosaic of him stood among the Fathers in Hagia Sophia. In Moscow, one of the chapels of Saint Basil's Cathedral is dedicated to him. The Armenian Church celebrates him on several days of the year, including his entry into and his release from Khor Virap, and the discovery of his relics. The monastery of Khor Virap, built over the pit, is still a place of pilgrimage.