St. Nersess Armenian Seminary



SyllabusOpen course Spring 2021Uncertain States: the Armenian Church in the 8th - 11th CenturiesSession I February 4The 8th century backgroundThe landscape of the 8th-11th centuries. What do the maps show us? Who are the global political players? What do they want with Armenians, and vice versa? How does the advent of another monotheistic religion in the region change Armenian Christians’ perception of human nature, the nature of Christ? What forces were at play in the ever-diversifying Muslim world of the Caucasus and the Middle East? Session II February 18The end of the beginningBy the time Catholicos Sahak Dzorop‘orets‘i’s long reign ended in 703, people who could remember what Armenian life had been like before the advent of Islam were elderly, quickly aging out. The honeymoon days that had followed the early conquest of Armenia by the Rashidun caliphate were over; under the Umayyads (and later, the Abbasids) Armenians were expected to understand their subordinate status as a people merely tolerated by the regime; taxation grew heavier, and conversion to Islam was strongly — sometimes forcefully — encouraged. The heroic catholicos’s death exemplified the changing relationship between the Armenians and their Muslim overlords. At the same time, the Church faced a rift with its only remaining sister church in the Caucasus, the Caucasian Albanian Catholicosate. Session III February 25Monotheisms and the artsFor two hundred years, Armenia’s Byzantine neighbors struggled with the question of how / whether depictions of the holy had a role to play in Christian faith. Islam, a literal interpretation of the Old Testament strictures on images, and the attitudes of Armenian military forces and anti-clerical faith movements played their parts in making the issue of icons a hot-button topic. The changing stance of the imperial hierarchy on this matter gave it political urgency and divisiveness. Yet, despite the tensions and rifts caused by it, several new and definitive spiritual attitudes emerged from the fraught situation, as both Byzantines and Armenians developed compromise positions and new focuses of approach to the faith. Session IV March 4Reshaping Armenian Christian IdentityPressured by two very different cultures, as well as by the divisive issue of the icons, Armenians had to work out the parameters of their own unique place in the world. In contradistinction to the spirituality of Byzantium, expressed through icons, Catholicos John of Otsun emphasized the cross and the liturgy as the two great expressions of Armenian Christian spiritual life. Two influential Armenian teachers — Bishop Stepanos of Siwnik‘ and Khosrovik the Translator — fleshed out this uniquely Armenian approach in their writings. Session V March 11Armenians as emperors and kingsThe influence of Gregory of Narek on Armenian spirituality is something we take for granted today. However, the Narek phenomenon was local to the Artsrunid kingdom and the Lake Van region. Its later spread into Cilicia and then throughout the Armenian speaking world would probably have surprised Gregory himself. What were the pillars of the Narek school’s teaching, and how did it fit in the dense, monastic landscape of its time and place?Session VI March 18New paradigms of holiness Gregory was not the only significant spiritual force at Narek. The thought and teaching of his father and his mentor, Khosrov Andzewats‘i and Anania of Narek, were also foundational for Armenian Christian identity moving forward. A related type of spirituality also flourished in Ani and the monastic centers of Haghbat and Sanahin. Together, these streams of spirituality formed a river of faith that carried the best of Armenian Christianity on its currents at least until the early modern period, and even today, Armenians still draw nourishment from these waters. Session VII March 25The devolution of Armenian self-ruleThe Bagratid kings took a calculated risk by creating a loose confederation of Bagratid principalities and lesser kingdoms around their central holdings in the Armenian heartland. It was only a matter of time before these lesser Bagratid entities broke away from the central Bagratid power to further their own political interests. Armenians concerned about the kingdom’s future found hope in prophecies and policies that seemed to promise a lasting, western-looking solution. That solution led to the fall of the Bagratid kingdom of Ani itself. Simultaneously, the Artsrunid kingdom chose a similar way of dealing with the encroaching power of Turkic forces, and the kingdom of Van-Vaspurakan also ceased to exist. The brilliant cultural flash of Armenian independence had lasted less than two hundred years.Session VIII April 8Moving on and moving outA saving grace for many Armenians living at the end of the kingdoms was the formation of Armenian enclaves in Cilicia. Already underway for several hundred years, this gradual process created options for Armenians to relocate to their south, if they did not want to remain in the Armenian highlands under occupation or move fully into Byzantium. These southern centers of Armenian population began as ad hoc responses to opportunities created by the struggle between Byzantine forces and Islamic entities for dominance in the Cilician region. They would become the stage on which Armenian dynastic politics continued to play out, beyond the traditional confines of the Armenian homeland. Bibliography of useful sources Primary sourcesGhewond the Priest, History of Armenia, trans. Robert Bedrosian. Available online at: The Armenian History Attributed to Sebeos, trans. and ed. Robert W. Thomson, James Howard-Johnston, and Tim Greenwood. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1999.Step‘anos (Orbelian) of Siwnik‘, History of the Province of Sisakan, trans. Robert Bedrosian, Sources of the Armenian Tradition: Longbranch, NJ. Available online at‘ovma Artsruni, History of the House of Artsrunik‘ trans. Robert W. Thomson, Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1985.Yovhannes Drasxanakertc‘i, History of Armenia (Scholars Press Occasional Papers and Proceedings: Armenian Studies), trans. Krikor H. Maksoudian, Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987. Secondary sources and studiesLeslie Brubaker, Inventing Byzantine Iconoclasm (Studies in Early Medieval History), London: Bristol Classical Press, 2012.S. Peter Cowe, “Relations between the Kingdom of Vaspurakan and Ani,” in Richard C. Hovannisian, ed., Armenian Van/Vaspurakan, Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers, 2000, 73-85.S. Peter Cowe, “Armenian Christology in the Seventh and Eighth Centuries with Particular Reference to the Contributions of Catholicos Yovhan Ojnec‘I and Xosrovik T‘argmanic‘,” The Journal of Theological Studies, n. s. 55/1 (2004), 30-54. Nina Garso?an, “The Arab Invasions and the Rise of the Bagratuni (640-884), in Richard G. Hovannisyan, ed., The Armenian People from Ancient to Modern Times, vol. 1: The Dynastic Period: From Antiquity to the Fourteenth Century, NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1997, 117-142.Nina Garso?an, Inerregnum: Introduction to a Study on the Formation of Armenian Identity (ca 600-750) (Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 640 Subsidia 127), Leuven: Peeters, 2012. Stephen Gero, Byzantine Iconoclasm during the Reign of Constantine V with Particular Attention to the Oriental Sources (CSCO 384 Subsidia 52) Louvain: Secrétaire du Corpus SCO, 1977. Available online at: Hugh Kennedy, The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates: The Islamic Near East from the Sixty to the Eleventh Century, 2nd ed., Harlow: Pearson Longman, 2004.Krikor Maksoudian, “A Note on the Monasteries Founded during the Reign of King Abas I Bagratuni,” Revue des ?tudes arméniennes XXII (1990-1991), 203-215.Vrej Nersessian, The Tondrakian Movement: Religious Movements in the Armenian Church from the Fourth to the Tenth Centuries, Allison Park, PA: Pickwick Publications, 1987.Zara Pogossian, “Locating Religion, Controllig Territory: Conquest and Legitimation in Late Ninth-Century Vaspurakan and Its Interreligious Context,” in Reinhold F. Glei and Nikolas Jaspert, eds., Locating Religions: Contact, Diversity and Translocality, Leiden: Brill, 2017, 173-233. (Available online through Academia.edu)Aram Ter-Ghewondyan, The Arab Emirates in Bagratid Armenia (trans. Nina Garso?an), (Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation Library), Lisbon: Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, 1976. Available onine at: Robert W. Thomson, "Armenian Literary Culture through the Eleventh Century" in Richard G. Hovannisian, ed., The Armenian People from Ancient to Modern Times, Volume I, The Dynastic Periods: From Antiquity to the Fourteenth Century, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 1997, V. Vardanyan, “Borders of the Kingdom of Vaspurakan in the Ninth-Eleventh Centuries,” [???????????? ????????????? ?????????? ?-?? ????????], PatmaBanasirakan Handes 4 (1969), 228-236. David Waines, “The Third Century Internal Crisis of the Abbasids,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 20/3 (1977), 282-306.Karen Yuzbashyan, “‘Armenia of the Bagratid Period’ from an international legal perspective” [????????????? ??????? ?????????` ?????????? ????????? ????????????], PatmaBanasirakan Handes 1 (1975), 33-53. ................
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