The General Epistle

of will and willingness, men and women, children and youth, the mature and the elderly, who conduct themselves according to the laws of the world, and those who conduct themselves with heavenly manners: May the greeting of love and peace reach you from this God-received and salvific Holy Sign, from the Apostolic relics original: "նշխարացս" - refers to the physical remains of the Apostles that received the fiery tongues of the Spirit, and from the right hand of our holy Illuminator St. Gregory the Illuminator and this See.

Before whom I plead in prayers to God, for the salvation of your souls, to open the ears of your minds to listen to these divine words which we are prepared to set before you from the commandments of God. So that, led by us in the paths of righteousness, each one of you may be worthy to be an heir to one of the dwellings in the house of the heavenly Father.

I also ask everyone to pray for us, that God may kindly grant a reckoning of the stewardship that is for your sake, whenever He calls and demands it from us.

Let it be known to you all that our spiritual father and brother in the flesh, the holy Catholicos Grigor Gregory III Pahlavuni, the occupant of the See and the successor of the great Illuminator of the Armenians, and one equal to him in purity of soul and wisdom—he who shepherded well for a long time the rational flock that Christ gave to him, according to Peter, saying "Feed my sheep"—when he reached the completion of his age, according to the order of the Patriarchs, before his passing, having received a sign from the Spirit, he called the bishops, the vardapets learned doctors of the church, and the fathers of the holy mountain, and those from other regions. And although we, upon his many calls for these matters, refused in the early times, deeming ourselves unworthy, yet at this time, being forced against our will, he himself and the assembly of Bishops ordained our unworthiness to the throne of the Catholicosate of the Armenian nation and the House of Torgom.

And when he completed the work of the command that was suggested to him from above, after three months, he was transferred as if by a call to Christ, ranking among the fathers, the Patriarch,