The Life of Mashtots

politan, it was also pleasing to the Sublime Porte that the Armenian Church should also be subject to the jurisdiction of the katoghikos of Ctesiphon and receive Hovsep's ordination from there. Hovsep, as was expected, did not yield to this proposal and was subjected to torments. In the end, he returned with the name of confessor "to the supervision," but Hovsep could not receive episcopal ordination. This incident, which must have happened in the year 440—441, Koriwn has mentioned as an appendix at the end of his History, undoubtedly as a protest.

Here we lose the trail of Koriwn. He is not mentioned in the Council of Shahapivan in 444 nor in the Council of Artashat in 450, nor in the course of the political events of the years 450—460. The year of Koriwn's death remains unknown to us.

3. Was Koriwn a bishop of the Georgians? In the passage of manuscript B, that Mashtots, by giving Georgian script and opening schools, caused literates to flourish, "among whom I, the unworthy, was also placed in the order of the bishopric, the first of whom was named Samuel... having been a bishop in the royal house" (XIII. 3), Fr. M. Chamchian 13 has interpreted: "This same blessed Koriwn was ordained by St. Sahak to the bishopric of one part of the Georgian land over the Armenians who were there, just as he himself mentions." Once the opinion found a place in the History of the Armenians, it took its course in national and foreign literature. I recall: New Dictionary of the Armenian Language, I. (1837), Introduction, p. 14: "ordained bishop in the borderlands of the Georgians and Aghuans"; Zarbhanalian 14, "Sahak the Hayrapet Patriarch ordained Koriwn bishop of the Georgians, and undoubtedly he sealed his life in that duty"; Sarkisian 15, "In truth, it is an Armenian tradition that Koriwn was appointed bishop of the Georgians, after Samuel"; G. Ter-Mkrtchian 16, "We know that Koriwn was bishop of the Georgians or the Georgian-Armenians; and in my opinion also, perhaps a Georgian or at least a Georgian-Armenian... in any case, it is difficult to understand what Koriwn said about himself in any other way." Alishan 17, "From this word, some infer that Koriwn was also a Georgian by nationality; but probably he can be called a Georgian-Armenian, an Armenian by nationality, but a native of those provinces that were sometimes under Georgian rule, and the land was called the Plain of the Georgians." So also Fr. H. Torosian 18, Fntglian 19, A. S. Sarukhan 20. The last two continue to insist on the same opinion, although they are aware of the correction by Norayr of Byzantium. It was Norayr of Byzantium 21 who first noticed that there is a corruption here in Koriwn's text: "The passage..."

13 History of Armenia, I., page 537.

14 Fr. G. Zarbhanalian, History of Ancient Armenian Literature, Venice 1897, page 310.

15 Fr. B. Sarkisian, Agathangelos and his centuries-old secret, page 111.

16 G. Ter-Mkrtchian, From the sources of Agathangelos, Ararat 1896, page 430.

17 Fr. Gh. Alishan, Hayapatum Armenian History/Narrative, I., 48.

18 Fr. H. Torosian, Bazmavep Multifarious/Polymath 1897, pp. 32—34.

19 Fntglian, Koriwn, pp. XVIII—XXII and XXXIV.

20 A. Sarukhan, Georgia and the Armenians, Vienna 1939, pp. 233—245. Compare also S. Weber, Koriwn, S. 187.

21 Koriwn Vardapet, pp. 385—386.