OF LORD

NERSES THE GRACIOUS

DISCOURSE

To the bishops, the doctors, and all the ranks of the church, who gathered on the day of the feast of Palms at the invitation of the Lord Grigorios, Catholicos of the Armenians, brother of the same, for his ordination to the Catholicosate of the Armenians.

MY WORDS are addressed to you, ranks of sacred high priests, priests, and wise doctors, who, like members gathered from every direction into the completeness of one body, have arrived here at the summons of the command of the head of the church: so that, through him and together with him, you may polish a stone—not of the lowly, but of the honorable—with your skillful architectural art, to build the body of Christ an allusion to the Church as the body of Christ, a common Pauline metaphor and join it together wisely. These things are requested by this small person dedicated to these matters, who asks with humility and attentiveness that you offer a hearing to these brief words, which are not to be touched once and vanish into the air, but rather to be recorded in writing according to the custom of the ancient wise ones.