Armeniaca
An Armenian encyclopedia
Edited by William Bairamian
A
Author of the History of the Armenians, the account of how Gregory the Illuminator converted King Tiridates III and brought Christianity to Armenia.
The island in Lake Van with the Church of the Holy Cross, built between 915 and 921 for King Gagik I Artsruni of Vaspurakan and famous for its stone reliefs.
Monastery in the Martuni region of Artsakh, founded by tradition by Gregory the Illuminator and linked to the first Armenian school.
The medieval capital of the Bagratid kingdom of Armenia, a walled city on the Akhuryan River, now an archaeological site in Turkey on a World Heritage List.
The legendary king of Armenia, son of Aram, who was killed in battle by the army of Queen Shamiram of Assyria, who hoped to bring him back to life.
The province on the slopes of Mount Aragats whose capital is Ashtarak, with the fortress of Amberd and the tomb of Mesrop Mashtots at Oshakan.
The province south of Yerevan whose capital is Artashat, with the monastery of Khor Virap where Gregory the Illuminator was imprisoned.
The province west of Yerevan whose capital is the town of Armavir, containing Etchmiadzin, Zvartnots and the site of the ancient capital Armavir.
The Armenian party founded at Van in 1885 under Mkrtich Portukalian, the first Armenian political party, which joined the Democratic Liberal Party in 1921.
The writing system created around 405 by Mesrop Mashtots for the Armenian language, still used by Armenians today.
The national church of the Armenians and one of the Oriental Orthodox churches, headed by the Catholicos of All Armenians at Etchmiadzin.
Armenian Democratic Liberal Party
The Armenian party, also called Ramgavar, formed on 1 October 1921 by the union of four parties, which has held to the Church of Etchmiadzin in the diaspora.
Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem
The Armenian Church’s patriarchate in the Armenian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, seated at the Cathedral of St. James, where Armenians have lived since the fourth century.
Armenian Revolutionary Federation
The Armenian political party, also called Dashnaktsutyun, founded at Tiflis in 1890, the leading party of the First Republic and a major party of the diaspora.
The Armenian name of the historic region known internationally as Nagorno-Karabakh, and of the Armenian republic that governed it from 1991 until its dissolution in 2024.
Bagratid king of Armenia from 952 to 977, who moved the capital to Ani and began its golden age.
The central province of historic Armenia, which held the Ararat Plain and most of the kingdom's ancient capitals, from Armavir to Dvin.
B
The apostle Bartholomew, who the Armenian Church holds was, with Thaddeus, the first to preach Christianity in Armenia, and who was flayed at Aghbak in 66.
The battle of June 451 in which the Persian army defeated the Armenians under Vardan Mamikonian, who died defending the Christian faith against Persian rule.
The battle of late May 1918 at Sardarabad, in which the Armenians stopped the Ottoman army and made possible the First Republic of Armenia.
C
The Holy See of Cilicia, one of the two Catholicosates of the Armenian Church, seated at Sis until 1921 and at Antelias in Lebanon since 1930.
The Armenian principality and kingdom on the southeast coast of Anatolia, founded in 1080 and ruled by Armenian dynasties until it fell to the Mamluks in 1375.
Conversion of Armenia to Christianity
The adoption of Christianity as the state religion of Armenia in 301, when King Tiridates III and his court were baptized by Gregory the Illuminator.
E
The mother cathedral of the Armenian Church and the seat of the Catholicos of All Armenians, built in Vagharshapat in 301 to 303.
Armenian churchman and pupil of Mesrop Mashtots, translator of the Bible and author of the Refutation of the Sects.
F
The independent Armenian state of 1918 to 1920, proclaimed on 28 May 1918 and ended by the Turkish invasion and Sovietization in December 1920.
G
Bagratid king of Armenia from 989 to 1020, in whose reign Ani reached the height of its power and wealth and its cathedral was completed.
The province around Lake Sevan whose capital is Gavar, with the monastery of Sevanavank, built in 874.
Armenian scholar and cleric of the twelfth century, the author of the Armenian Law Book and the Fables, who founded the monastery of Nor Getik, later called Goshavank.
Armenian monk, poet and mystic of the tenth century, author of the Book of Lamentations, and a Doctor of the Catholic Church since 2015.
The saint who converted King Tiridates III and baptized the Armenian nation, and the first head of the Armenian Church.
The historic province in the north of Armenia, called Gogarene by the Greeks, which reached from the highlands of Lori to Javakhk and passed to Iberian suzerainty in 387.
H
The ancestor of the Armenians, who in the history of Movses Khorenatsi rebelled against the tyrant Bel of Babylon and settled in the land of Ararat.
The Social Democrat Hunchakian Party, a Marxist Armenian party founded at Geneva in 1887 that sought the freedom of Ottoman Armenia through revolution.
The monastery of Arakelots near Mush in Taron, a major center of medieval Armenian learning and writing, said to have been founded by Gregory the Illuminator in 312 and destroyed in 1915.
K
The system of signs, called khazes, in which medieval Armenian church music was written; its meaning was lost by the modern era and is only partly recovered.
The author of the History of the Armenians, called the Father of Armenian History, who traces the nation from its ancestor Hayk to the death of Mesrop Mashtots.
Armenian priest, composer and musicologist, born in 1869 in Kütahya, who collected thousands of folk songs and was arrested in 1915 and died in Paris in 1935.
Pupil of Mesrop Mashtots and author of his biography, The Life of Mashtots, the oldest account of the creation of the Armenian alphabet.
The province east of Yerevan whose capital is Hrazdan, home of the temple of Garni and the rock-cut monastery of Geghard.
L
The first king of Cilician Armenia, who ruled from 1199 to 1219, received his crown with the approval of the pope and the German emperor and allied his kingdom with the Crusaders.
Koriun’s biography of Mesrop Mashtots, written soon after 440, and the oldest account of the creation of the Armenian alphabet.
The province in northern Armenia whose capital is Vanadzor, home of the monasteries of Haghpat and Sanahin and the birthplace of Hovhannes Tumanyan.
M
Commander of the Armenian army who died leading the revolt against Persian rule at Avarayr in 451, and is honored by the Armenian Church as a saint.
Armenian monk and scholar who created the Armenian alphabet in the early fifth century and founded the schools and translations that made Armenian a written language.
P
Armenian historian of the late fifth century, the author of the History of the Armenians, which covers the years 387 to 485 and the war of Vardan Mamikonian.
The historic province of Armenia north and west of Lake Urmia, called Persian Armenia, one of the fifteen provinces of Greater Armenia.
The historic province in the east of Armenia between the Kura and the Araxes, whose name is the Armenian form of Baylaqan, a medieval town now in ruins.
The ten provinces, or marzes, and the capital city into which the Republic of Armenia is divided, with their administrative centers.
The fifteen provinces into which the geography of Anania Shirakatsi divides Greater Armenia, from Upper Armenia in the west to Artsakh and Paytakaran in the east.
S
Armenian ashugh, or minstrel, of eighteenth-century Tiflis, a weaver and court singer known for his love songs, who was killed by Persian invaders in 1795.
The province in northwestern Armenia whose capital is Gyumri, and the historic district of Shirak in the Ayrarat province, where Anania Shirakatsi was born.
Armenian mathematician and geographer of the seventh century, the author of the Book of Arithmetic and the Ashkharhatsuyts, called the father of science in Armenia.
The historic province of Tsopk in southwestern Armenia, ruled by its own dynasty before Tigranes the Great joined it to Greater Armenia.
The historic Armenian province in the far south, now a province of Armenia, home of the monastery of Tatev and an independent kingdom from 987 to 1170.
T
The historic Armenian province centered on the plain of Mush, west of Lake Van, a stronghold of Armenian monasteries and one of the most densely Armenian regions of Western Armenia before 1915.
The forested province in the northeast of Armenia whose capital is Ijevan, with the monasteries of Haghartsin and Goshavank, where Mkhitar Gosh founded his school.
The apostle Thaddeus, who the Armenian Church holds was, with Bartholomew, the first to preach Christianity in Armenia, and who was put to death in Artaz.
King of Armenia from 95 to 55 BC, who conquered northern Mesopotamia and Syria, took the title King of Kings and founded Tigranakert.
King of Armenia in 301, under whom Christianity became the state religion.
The Armenian architect of the late tenth century who built the cathedral of Ani and rebuilt the dome of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople after the earthquake of 988.
Armenian poet and writer, born in the village of Dsegh in Lori in 1869 and called the Poet of All Armenians, the author of Anush, Maro and the retelling of David of Sassoun.
V
Town west of Yerevan, the site of the cathedral of Etchmiadzin and the center of the Armenian Church.
The city on the eastern shore of Lake Van, once the Urartian capital Tushpa and the center of Armenian Vaspurakan, where Armenians held out against the Ottoman army in the spring of 1915.
The historic Armenian province around Lake Van, a kingdom of the Artsruni family until 1021, with the city of Van and the island of Aghtamar.
The province in southern Armenia whose capital is Yeghegnadzor, with the medieval monastery of Noravank and the Areni-1 cave, the oldest known winery.
Y
Nothing here yet.