ARMENIAN - Erevangala500

The Armenian Orthodox patriarch of Istanbul ruled over
all Christians who did not belong to the Greek Orthodox
Church. Aside from the Armenian Gregorians themselves,
these included the Monophysitic churches o f Asia
Minor and Africa, such as the Jacobites and the Syrians,
as well as the Copts in Egypt.
In those days, gypsies were believed to come from Egypt
and were called "Copti". Therefore, all the gypsies of the
Ottoman Empire were also subject to the rule of the Armenian
patriarch of Istanbul in matters of civil law.
Another religious group under Armenian Orthodox rule
were the Bogomils of the Balkans and their founding
fathers, the Paulicians. They still survived in small communities
in eastern Anatolia and held Manichean beliefs.
The history of the historical province of Armenia and the
many peoples who have lived there begins under the banner
o f the fight between East and West for world supremacy.
The Haik, an Indo-European people, probably from the
Balkans or Thrace, migrated to the historical province of
Armenia in the sixth century B.C. At that time, the Urartian
kingdom was collapsing under the blows of the
Scythians.
The newly-arrived Indo-European Haik mixed with the
Urartians to some extent. The Asian language of the Urartians
was an agglutinative language like Turkish. It had a
certain influence on the Indo-European language of the
Armenians, as did the superior culture of the Urartians.
While their immigration to eastern Anatolia was still going
on, the Haik (Armenians) fell under Median rule, and
in the year 550 the emperor Kyros took possession of the
ancient lands of the Urartians along with the newly arrived
Haik. The first mention of the Armenians is to be
found in the inscription of Behistun in connection with
the triumphant reports of the victories of Darius (486
B.C.) At that time, the Armenians were already Persian
subjects.
In the fourth century before Christ, Armenia (with all its
races, tribes, and people of mixed blood) was under the
rule of the Achaemids and later, that o f the Seleucids.
When the Parthians took over, the Armenian prince Ti-
granes became a hostage in the Parthian court. Tigranes
II. (95-55 B.C.) succeeded in freeing Armenia from the
Parthians and creating an independent Annenian nation.
His capital was Tigranakert (now called Silvan, southwest
of Lake Van). Tigranes II. married the daughter of
the king o f Pontus, Mithridates VI. Eupator, and made the
disastrous mistake of joining Mithridates in a revolt
against Rome.
In 69 B.C., the Roman general Lucullus defeated the Armenian
ruler Tigranes II., and the short-lived dream of
Armenian independence was over. For the Haik to refer
nowadays on occasion to that short period of real Armenian
rule in eastern Anatolia and for Armenian terrorists
to base their territorial demands on that is comparable to
Italian mafiosi in the United States wishing to be the sue-
32
When the Armenian king Tigranes refused to hand over his
megalomaniac father-in-law, Mithridates, ruler of Pontos, to
the Roman generals, Lucullus attacked "Tigranes City".
Tigranes' armored lancers were alone more numerous than
Lucullus' entire force, which the Armenians scorned, saying it
was "too large for a legation but too small for an army". The
battle lasted just one day (October 9, 69 A. D.), and the Romans
destroyed the army o f Tigranes, which had been twenty times
stronger. According to the Roman military report there were
virtually no Romans killed at all, only Armenians. Tigranes
managed to escape unrecognized and met up again with his
father-in-law, Mithridates, who was later killed by his own peo-
le. The subject peoples deserted the tyrant Tigranes and paid
omage to the victors, Lucullus and Pompeius.
cessors of the Romans (or better of Lucullus or Trajan)
and taking control of eastern Anatolia as the heirs of the
victors o f Tigranakert . . . The French could demand vast
portions of North America over which they once ruled.
And the examples go on ad infinitum. If every group of
people claimed all the lands over which they ruled at
some point in their history, then the entire world would
have to be evacuated and resettled, and there would be
constant warfare.
There were several eventful centuries during which dominance
in eastern Anatolia belonged sometimes to the
Romans (Trajan, Nero, Hadrian, Diocletian) and sometimes
to the Persian Sassanids. At the end o f this period,
the emperor Diocletian named Tiridates III. King of
Armenia. Gregory Parthev, a Parthian, preached
Christianity. The most recent findings indicate that
Armenia did not adopt Christianity until after the conversion
o f the emperor Constantine in 313 A.D. The
Armenian conversion most likely occured in 314 at the
behest of King Trdat (Tiridates). The missionizing of
Armenia probably began in Edessa (present-day Urfa). It
has been proven that Christian communities existed as
early as the second century. The great converter was
Gregory Parthev Lusarevic, the Illuminator. He was not a
Haik, but rather an Armenian in the true sense of the
word, an inhabitant o f the province of Armenia. He was,
however, of Parthian origin.
Gregory lived in Roman Caesarea (Kayseri) as a refugee
from the Persians. It was there that he became a
Christian. At first, King Tiridates persecuted Gregory,
but then he himself became a Christian, and with him,
gradually, the people of Armenia.
Christianity quickly took hold throughout the Roman Empire,
in Georgia as well as in Caucasian Albania and in
Armenia. This deeply troubled the Persians. Julian the
Apostate, who might have been able to handle the Persians,
died unexpectedly. His successor, Jovian, relinquished
the Caucasus and Armenia to the Persians without
a fight. After the death of Emperor Theodosius in 395, the