History of the Armenians

to kill the priest of God, Vrtanes. But they also had a small shred of confidence from the wife of the king, to perform that deed, because the saint had reproached her for all the secrets of her adultery, her stinginess, and her dissolute ways. And they arrived and surrounded the great wall of the church of Ashtishat. While he was inside performing the sacrifice, they wanted to surround it and close it off from the outside. But the arms of each one of those who were in the troop turned back upon their own backs, and without any ropes at all, they were miraculously bound. Thus besieged, crushed, driven back, repulsed, and contorted, they all fell to the ground in silence, unable to move from the place. These were the clans and families, the destroyers of the land and the perpetrators of ruin, the evildoers among the priests. Now, being thus besieged, the mob lay piled up in the courtyard of the church. Vrtanes himself came out, approached them, and asked them, "Who are you, or where do you come from, or whom do you seek, or why have you come?" Then they, having begun to speak the truth, confessed that, "We came to destroy this place and to kill you, having been emboldened by the command and the nod of the great lady of Armenia. But the Lord God revealed His power and showed us that He alone is God. And now we have known and believed that He alone is God. And now, behold, we are thus contorted, so that we cannot even move from this place." Then the blessed Vrtanes brought the word of teaching into their midst, confirmed them in the faith in the one Lord Jesus Christ, and spoke much with them. Then he offered prayers and petitioned God; he healed them and released them from the invisible bonds and from the impossible contortion of their torments. And when they were saved from that, they all fell before him and asked for the medicine of repentance, and he gave them a time designated for repentance. And having learned the faith of the unified Holy Trinity, then he baptized about two thousand of them, leaving their wives and their children, and thus he brought them into the faith, and released them, cleansed and believing.