Ablabas Bagratuni—[Arabic for "father of Abas"] same as Smbat Bagratuni, also known as Smbat the Confessor, the commander-in-chief of Armenia, who was taken captive by the Arabs in AD 855. He died in exile in Samarra near Bagdad, refusing to forsake his faith in Christ.
Abraham—catholicos of Armenia from AD 607 to 611, during whose reign the church of Georgia separated from that of Armenia.
Agathangelos—author of a History of Armenia, the primary source on the circumstances surrounding the conversion of the Armenian people to Christianity. Agathangelos' claim to being the secretary of King Trdat III is not accepted by modern scholars. The consensus at present is that the History was composed in [88] the 460s by an anonymous author who employed the assumed name Agathangelos, which in Greek means "good messenger." It has been suggested that the word agathangelos may have been a part of the original title, and that History of Agathangelos referred to St. Gregory the Illuminator, the "good messenger" who brought the Good News to Armenia. There is an English translation of the History by Professor R. W. Thomson (Albany: State University of New York, 1976).
Aharon of Vanand—the author who compiled the short piece on the Holy Cross of Nune. From his own testimony it is possible to conclude that he was an early tenth-century personality and composed his work (which is based on earlier sources) about AD 930-931. In the title of his account he is said to be a grandson of the priest Ghewond, but later on he is mentioned as a descendant of the same. Since Ghewond of Vanand or Ijawan (a village in Vanand) was a fifth-century figure, it would be more appropriate to understand the term "grandson" in the sense of a descendant.
[89] Akhurean River—the present-day Arpa which separates the region of Ani from the Republic of Armenia.
Alans, Gates of the—the present-day Daryal Pass below Mt. Kazbek, located on the northern border of Georgia.
Albania—not to be confused with present-day Albania in southeastern Europe. Caucasian Albania was the country to the east of the Kura River and extended as far as the Caspian Sea. In the fifth century it was a client kingdom of the Iranian empire.
altar of fire—according to Zoroastrian religion, fire, one of the sacred elements, was worshipped at altars erected at different places. Fire worship was a part of the state religion and it was unlawful to put out the sacred fire at the temples.
anazat—a person of non-azat class. Among these were villagers, city dwellers and slaves.
Andreas—a monk from Ghazaru Vank monastery in Taron who had gone near Shushanik at the court of Vazgen in order to escape the persecutions of the Sasanian government [90] after the great rebellion of AD 451. His writing was used by Father Aharon in the tenth century and served as one of the sources for the latter's account of the Holy Cross of Nune.
Antipatros—it is unclear whether this was an alternate name of the margrave Vazgen or simply an epithet. The name (known to the English reader as Antipater) means "instead of the father" in Greek, and could refer to Vazgen's succession to his father Ashusha's office as margrave of Gugark. It could also be a corrupt form of the Greek title anthypatos, meaning "proconsul," presumably used as a Greek approximation of Vazgen's Iranian-Armenian title bdeshkh, meaning "margrave."
Antiochene tunic—the nature of this article of clothing is unknown.
Apkhaz—ancestors of the present-day Aphkaz.
Apots—mentioned as the court bishop of Gugark.
Armenian Era—in the fifth century, when Shushanik lived, the Armenians used a calendar (attributed to a certain Andreas of Byzantium) in which the dates of Easter were calculated for a period of 200 years. When [91] this 200-year cycle reached its completion in AD 551, there ensued a ten-year period of calendrical confusion.
The date of Easter is calculated according to the lunar cycle (twelve months of twenty-nine and one-half days each, or 354 days), whereas the civil calendar in use in Armenia and the Byzantine empire was based on the solar year (365 days). One way of solving the problem was by multiplying nineteen solar years—a cycle wherein the number of days corresponds fully to the number of days in 235 lunar months—with twenty-eight solar years—the period necessary for the days of the week to fall on the same days of the year. This multiplication produced a calendrical cycle of 532 years, or an "eternal" cycle. In short, if one could calculate the dates of Easter for 532 years, one could repeat the cycle over and over again. Since the older calendar in Armenia had stopped in AD 551, the Armenians began the newly introduced 532 year-cycle with the year 552, naming it Year 1 according to the Armenian Era.
[92] In order to calculate a particular year in the Armenian Era, one must subtract 551 from the Year of Our Lord (Anno Domini, or A.D.). But this is only a general rule; it is not always an accurate way to establish the correspondence between the Armenian Era and the Year of Our Lord, since determinations of the exact date of Christ's birth vary from author to author. Thus in certain medieval works the first year of the Armenian era may correspond to AD 553, and the Year of Our Lord may be two or three years ahead.
Arsharunik—a district located to the north of present-day Kagizman and south of Kars in eastern Turkey; it was the realm of the Kamsarakan family in the early Middle Ages. A sister of Shushanik named Vardanush was married into the Kamsarakan family.
Ashot I—the first Bagratid king of Armenia, who ruled from AD 884 to 889.
Ashusha—also known as Arshusha in Georgian; he was the margrave of Gugark at the time of the Vardanants rebellion in the middle of the fifth century. Though Georgian in origin, he [93] was married to an Armenian princess of the Artsruni family. His name appears in the works of the Armenian historians of the Vardanants period.
azat—[Armenian for "freeman"] a member of the lower class of the Armenian nobility.
Bagratids—originally the coronants of the ancient Arshakuni kings of Armenia. From the middle of the eighth century, when Armenia was under Arab domination, they acquired extensive territories and gained the confidence of the Arab overlords. By the middle of the ninth century various branches of the family were also ruling in Georgia and Albania. In AD 862 the Arab caliph gave Ashot I the title "Prince of Princes" and recognized him as the lord of all of Transcaucasia and as the leader of the principalities in that region. This extensive realm was ultimately fragmented into several kingdoms and principalities, most of which were ruled by dynasties descended from the Bagratids and their clients. The Bagratid line ruled in Georgia until the annexation of that [94] country to the Russian empire in the early nineteenth century.
Baguan, Monastery of—the Monastery of St. John in the village of Uc Kilise on the plain of Eleshkirt in eastern Turkey. The story on the Holy Cross of Nune puts the plunder of this church during the rule of Subuk as governor of Azerbaijan. The plunder actually took place under an earlier Arab governor.
Basean, Lesser—the region of Pasenler to the east of Erzurum (eastern Turkey), though it is unclear in the texts whether Lower or Upper Pasen is indicated.
Book of Letters—[Girk tghtots in Armenian] a collection of letters and documents on theological disputes. The individual documents were composed at various times between the early fifth to thirteenth centuries. The collection was first assembled in the early seventh century, and was refurbished with new material in the ninth and subsequent centuries. The work was recently edited by Archbishop Norayr Bogharian and published in Jerusalem in 1994.
[95] Chor—a fortress located near the Sarnur River and the Caspian Sea, part of the fortifications at and near Derbend that protected the passes along the Caspian from invasions by nomadic peoples from the north.
Eghivard, Monastery of—a renowned hermitage located in the village of Eghvard, which is eighteen kilometers to the northwest of Yerevan. The village has two basilican churches, presumably dating back to the fifth century. A hermitage is known to have existed here in the ninth century.
Eraskhadzor—literally "the valley of the Eraskh [Arax River]." In antiquity it included the district of Arsharunik and the region immediately to the south of the Arax River and the town of Kagizman in eastern Turkey.
Ghazaru Vank—[Armenian for "Monastery of Lazarus"] renowned monastery to the southeast of the city of Mush in eastern Turkey; also known as Arakelots Vank [Holy Apostles Monastery]. According to tradition, Ghazaru Vank was founded by St. Gregory the Illuminator. The earliest datable references [96] (other than the story of the Holy Cross of Nune) to the monastery go back no earlier than the eleventh century. In the twelfth century the monastery became a very important cultural center. The tombstones in the courtyard were said to stand over the graves of renowned fifth-century writers and intellectuals. The monastic complex, which was still extant until 1915, is now completely destroyed.
Ghewond the Elder—a fifth-century priest who was one of the leaders of the rebellion of Vardan Mamikonean in AD 449. He was later arrested with eight other clergymen and exiled into the interior of Iran. Ghewond as well as the others with him were martyred in 454.
Grigor, Saint—St. Gregory the Illuminator, who at the beginning of the fourth century converted King Trdat III of Armenia, his court, as well as the Armenian people to Christianity, and who established the line of catholicoi.
Gugark—the northern marchland of Armenia. Certain parts of this region had already been severed from Armenia and appended to [97] Georgia in the middle decades of the fourth century. In AD 387 the Persians severed the rest of it from Armenia-proper and put its inhabitants under the rule of the bdeshkh (Armenian for "margrave" or "march-lord") of Gugark. The latter was thenceforth directly accountable to the Persian authorities, whereas he previously had governed under the Armenian Arshakuni kings. The northern districts of Gugark in particular, which bordered on Georgia, and the southern districts of Georgia, including the city of Tiflis, contained a mixed population of Armenians and Georgians throughout late antiquity and the Middle Ages.
Hripsime, Saint—one of the forty nuns executed for their Christian faith at the order of King Trdat III. According to the account of Agathangelos, the king fell in love with Hripsime, but when she refused his marriage proposal the enraged king ordered Hripsime and her comrades to be executed. The bones of the slain nuns were later gathered by St. Gregory the Illuminator and laid in graves [98] over which two martyria (baldachins or altar canopies) were erected. At the end of the fourth century or early fifth century, these gave way to two chapels. These structures in turn were replaced by magnificent churches in the early part of the seventh century. (The seventh-century sanctuaries named for St. Hripsime and St. Gayiane are still extant and in a good state of preservation. Recent excavations in the churchyard of St. Hripsime have revealed human bones; crypts beneath the altars of both churches contain the relics of St. Hripsime and St. Gayiane.)
Jawakhk—one of the districts of Gugark, corresponding to the present region of Akhalkalaki in Georgia.
Kaghots—one of the months of the Armenian calendar. Since the ancient Armenian calendar had no leap year, and neither the New Year nor the months were stationary, the church had to make use of the Julian calendar to assign stable dates to the holy days. Thus, for example, in medieval lives of saints, Kaghots 17 corresponds to December 27.
[99] Kaput—a part of the Parkhar range where a fortress bearing the same name also stood.
Karasin Vank—it is difficult to determine whether this monastery is identical with the one in the region of Erzurum, about which there is very limited information.
Karmir Porak—see Vanand.
Karneneats Fortress—an otherwise unknown fortress located in Vanand.
Kgharjk—the region around the town of Ardanuc. in northeastern Turkey.
King of Kings—the title of the Sasanian kings of Iran. Before them the Parthian kings and the Armenian King Tigran II used it. There is evidence that it was a title originally used by the kings of Urartu.
Kiwrion of Skurta—the catholicos of the church of Georgia at the beginning of the seventh century. He adhered to the Christological doctrine of the Byzantine church and severed his ties with the church of Armenia. Information about him is derived only from the Armenian sources. His name does not appear at all in the Georgian sources.
[100] Kura River—the border separating historical Armenia from Georgia in the north, and from Caucasian Albania in the northeast.
Leo I—late Roman emperor, who ruled from AD 457 to 474.
Magi—Zoroastrian priests, who constituted a cast of Iranian society.
Mamikoneans—a prominent family of the medieval Armenian nobility, hereditary commanders-in-chief of the Armenian forces in the fourth and fifth centuries. From the end of the fifth century, various princes of this family also ruled as governors of Armenia under the Persians and Byzantines. The Mamikoneans were phased out of Armenian history as a result of the rebellions against the Arab caliphate in AD 774-775. Some branches of the family went to Byzantium and played an important role there, while secondary branches with different names continued to rule in Armenia's remote mountainous regions.
marchland—a border region or frontier; a district set up to defend a boundary.
[101] margrave—the military governor of a medieval border province. This definition best suites the meaning of the Armenian bdeshkh (itself an Iranian loan word), the title given to the lords of the northern, southeastern, and southwestern marches of Armenia. Because of the strategic importance of the border provinces, a bdeshkh outranked other princes and even held certain prerogatives of royal rank.
Massagetae—the Caspian Sea shore to the south of the fortification at Chor. The name derives from a local tribe.
menologion—a liturgical book containing a collection of saints' lives arranged according to their dates in the Armenian calendar. The "ecclesiastical year'' in the menologion begins on the Armenian New Year, Nawasard 1 (which corresponds to August 11). The Armenian menologion as we know it was compiled in the thirteenth century, though its antecedents date back to the ninth century. Later editions also indicate the date of the month according to the Julian calendar.
[102] Movses Khorenatsi—author of the History of Armenia, which covers the history of Armenia from the time of the Creation through the deaths of Catholicos Sahak I and Mashtots Vardapet (the inventor of the Armenian alphabet) in AD 438-439. Movses claims to have been a pupil of both men; however, modern Western scholarship disputes the claim. There is still no consensus about Movses' own dates and identity; in scholarly books he shuttles between the fifth and the ninth centuries. Khorenatsi's History is available in an English translation by Professor R. W. Thomson (Harvard University Press, 1978).
Mtskhita—an ancient fortified city in Georgia. It was the capital of the Georgian kings until the fifth century. In the Middle Ages it became the seat of the catholicoi of Georgia.
Nune, Saint—according to legend, one of the companions of St. Hripsime, who survived the massacre of the nuns at the order of King Trdat and managed to escape. She later traveled to Georgia, where she preached [103] Christianity and converted the Georgians. She is known as St. Nino in Georgian.
Parkhar—the ancient Armenian name for the eastern part of the Pontic Mountains (now known as Dogu. Karadeniz Daglar). The Parkhar range separated Tayk, the northernmost province of Armenia, from the shores of the Black Sea.
Pontus Sea—another name for the Black Sea.
Sahak the Parthian, Saint—catholicos of Armenia from AD 387 to 438, and the last descendant of St. Gregory the Illuminator to occupy the patriarchal throne of Armenia. The epithet "Parthian" was given to him because of the claim of the family of St. Gregory to be of Parthian origin. Indeed, St. Sahak himself was related by blood to the royal Arshakuni dynasty of Armenia, which was definitely of Parthian origin. Sahak traced his ancestry to St. Gregory through his father, Nerses the Great, chief bishop of Armenia from AD 352 to 373. Nerses was the son of Atanagine, son of the chief bishop Husik, son of the chief bishop Vrtanes, son of [104] St. Gregory the Illuminator. Sahak's only daughter, Sahakanush, was the mother of St. Vardan Mamikonean, the hero of the rebellion in 451 against the Iranian empire. The major accomplishment of Sahak's long tenure as chief bishop was an attempt (ultimately successful) to transform Armenian from an exclusively spoken language into a literary one. In this task Sahak was associated with St. Mesrob Mashtots, who devised the distinctive Armenian alphabetic script and conceived the idea of producing an Armenian literature in the new written language. Sahak's life is the subject of a medieval Life of Saint Sahak, a compilation based on fifth-century and later sources.
Sahakanush—the only daughter of St. Sahak the Parthian, mother of St. Vardan Mamikonean and (therefore) Shushanik's grandmother.
Samuel, Bishop—one of the bishops mentioned in the Passion. It is difficult to determine whether this is the same Samuel mentioned as a pupil of Mashtots Vardapet, who was subsequently made chief bishop of Georgia.
[105] Shushanik, Saint—the daughter of St. Vardan Mamikonean and the great granddaughter of St. Sahak the Parthian. Her actual name was Vardeni. Her pet name "Shushanik" is the Armenicized form of the biblical Susanna, who figures in the Old Testament Apocrypha as the heroine of the Book of Susanna. The biblical Susanna—who was unjustly accused of fornication by two spiteful Jewish elders, after she rejected their lecherous advances—stood out in medieval Armenian literature as the personification of moral uprightness. Vardeni was given this name in tribute to her own virtue and rectitude.
Smbat I Bagratuni—son of the Bagratid King Ashot I, and king of Armenian from AD 890 to 813.
Sper—a district in northern Armenia, which was the original domain of the Bagratids. It presently corresponds to the region of Ispir, located to the northwest of Erzurum in eastern Turkey.
Subuk—Nasr al-Subuki, the Arab governor of Azerbaijan from AD 919 to 922.
[106] Taron—the original domain of the Mamikonean family. It presently corresponds to the region of Mush in eastern Turkey.
Tayots dzor—literally, "valley of Tayk." Tayk was the northern province of Armenia, a mountainous region to the northeast of Erzurum. The present-day Lake Tortum lies almost at the center of this ancient district.
Theodosiopolis—the Greek designation for the present-day city of Erzurum, named for the Roman Emperor Theodosius I (AD 379-395), who built a fortified city on the earlier site of an Armenian town. In Armenian the city was known as Karnoy kaghak, and its surrounding region as Karin.
Tiflis—the present-day Tbilisi, capital of the Republic of Georgia, and center of an Armenian community dating back to the early Middle Ages.
Trdat, King—usually identified as Trdat III, king of Armenia, who converted to Christianity through the efforts of St. Gregory the Illuminator. The conversion of Armenia can be established as having taken place at the [107] beginning of the fourth century. Stepanos Asoghik, an early eleventh-century historian, fixes the date at AD 301 based on his own chronological calculations.
Treghk—the region of Tsalka in Georgia, located to the southwest of Tiflis.
Tsanark—the district of Kazbegi in Georgia, in the region of the Daryal Pass.
Tsurtaw—the capital of the margraves of Gugark, located at a site to the northeast of the modern town of Bolnisi.
Ukhtanes—a tenth-century historian, whose work (insofar as it has survived) consists of two parts. The first is an epitome on the history of Armenia in ancient times; the second concerns "The Separation of the Georgian Church from the Church of Armenia." Both parts have been translated into English by the Reverend Fr. Zaven Arzoumanian, in two separate volumes (Part I, Fort Lauderdal: 1988; Part II, Fort Lauderdale: 1985). [The present edition presents new translations of the two relevant chapters from the History of Bishop Ukhtanes.]
[108] Upret—a fortress in Gugark. Some scholars identify it with Orbet, the original home of the Orbelean family, which gave the family its name.
Vagharshak—according to Movses Khorenatsi, the legendary founder of the Armenian Arshakuni dynasty. It is impossible to identify him with any historical king mentioned in the Greco-Roman sources.
Vagharshapat, cathedral of—Vagharshapat was the ancient capital city of Armenia, the site of the present-day city of Etchmiadzin. The cathedral of Vagharshapat is identical to the cathedral of Holy Etchmiadzin, seat of the Catholicos of All Armenians and center of the Armenian church. In Shushanik's time the cathedral had been in existence for more than a century.
Vahanavank—a renowned monastery of the tenth century, located in the present-day region of Ghapan.
Vanand—the present-day region of Kars. The northeastern part of this region, known as Lesser Vanand, was renamed Karmir Porak [109] in the second half of the fifth century, according to the testimony of the monk Andreas.
Vardan Mamikonean, Saint—the father of Shushanik, commander-in-chief of Armenia, and a renowned saint of the Armenian church. Vardan led the rebellion against the Iranian empire in defense of the Christian faith. He and several of his companions fell in battle on May 26, AD 451.
Vazgen—[also known as Varsken or Varksen in Georgian] the son of margrave Ashusha and the husband of Shushanik. He emerges as the villain in the story in the Passion.
Vrtanes Vardapet—a learned Armenian churchman who served as the locum tenens of the patriarchal see from AD 604 to 607. He is remembered for an ongoing theological dispute with Kiwrion, the catholicos of the Georgian church. His letters have survived in the medieval collection of documents known as the Book of Letters.
Yazkert son of Vram—the Iranian King of Kings Yazdagird II, son of King of Kings Varahran V. He ruled from AD 439 to 457, and it was [110] during his reign that the Armenians under the command of Vardan Mamikonean rebelled against the Iranian empire.
Zeno—Late Roman emperor, who ruled from AD 474 to 491.
Zoroastrianism—the official state religion of the Iranian empire under the Sasanian dynasty, which ruled from the early third to the mid-seventh century. The Zoroastrian religion revered the elements, especially fire. The kind of Zoroastrianism practiced under the Sasanians allowed incestuous marriage relationships among the nobility, a Hellenistic practice intended to keep dynastic lines intact.