The Life of Mashtots

"...a most familiar fellow countryman." Here, too, the historian has expressed himself in the third person. He has beautifully presented his meeting with Eznik, whom he calls "a most familiar fellow countryman," not only as bringing with them a fellow student of one vardapet master, but perhaps also a fellow countryman. They returned together with a "fixed copy" of the Greek translation of the Bible, as well as Eznik's translations of the works of the Holy Fathers and the "Nicaean and Ephesian canons." From the small and sensitive description which Koriwn has reported regarding Mashtots's final hours, it is possible to conclude that he was found near the bedside of the dying Vardapet.

Mashtots died on February 17, 440, and was buried in Oshakan. Three months (or another reading: year) later, Vahan, the lord of the Amatuni clan and hazarapet chiliarch/chief of the treasury of the Armenians, built a hall within the chapel of the same village and moved the relics of the Holy Vardapet there for rest.

Because Mashtots died on February 17 and the construction of the chapel was completed in three months, the transfer of the relics must have taken place in the month of June of the same year. But the Armenian Church celebrates the feast of St. Mashtots in Oshakan on the Thursday of the fourth week after Pentecost. This day falls according to the movement of the Easter feast between the dates of June 11 and July 14. By this calculation, in 440, it happened on June 27, therefore exactly four months and 12 days later. If we take the average number, June 20, we get four full months. In this case, I would want to read the g (three) of the manuscript as d (four) and count from the 13th of Mehekan to the 13th of Margats (June 18, 440, Tuesday). The arrangement of the calendar assumes a late time; and the people, who followed an old tradition, continued their pilgrimage on a certain day of the same month of Margats, which coincides with June. In June 1927, I participated in the pilgrimage of the same month, and I offered my grateful feelings, my wishes of love and respect to the Great Saint and to the relics of the founder of our literature, which were kept there in the houses of the saints. The reading of the manuscript "after three years" seems to me a transcription error.

Koriwn knows that the people are accustomed to gather in Taron at St. Sahak's grave "year by year, assembling in the same (Navasard) month (XXX) to celebrate the day of his remembrance" (XIX. 2). Sahak had died on September 7, 439. Koriwn could use this "year by year" saying here, considering the years 439—442; there is no need to assume longer years to mention such a custom.

In the same year 440, the appointment of Hovsep as "chief locum tenens" and Hovhan as "supervisor" must have taken place. Koriwn also remembers Hovhan's going to Ctesiphon and being subjected to various tortures.

Hovhan's journey to Ctesiphon was undoubtedly of an official nature; he had the duty to notify Yazdegerd II of the deaths of St. Sahak and St. Mashtots and the election of Hovsep to the katoghikos catholicos/universal bishop throne, and at the same time to request the king's approval for him to go to Caesarea for ordination. In the meantime, the katoghikos of the Christians of Persia had severed his relations with the metropolitanate of Antioch and declared himself an independent metropolitan and katoghikos. Just as to the Metro-