some of the inhabitants of Teflis devoutly believed, completely performed its office and established its ancient reputation; and there were not wanting those who declared, that as soon as the sacred spear-head entered the town through one gate, the plague, in the shape of a cow with a human head, darted out through another. The library of the Patriarch of the Armenian Church appears to be limited enough. Mr Morier received permission from his Eminency to examine it, who seemed to be completely ignorant of its contents; and all that he knew about the books was, that formerly there had been a great many more, but where they had been carried, or how they had been abstracted, he did not know. The books which it contained were ranged in rows, along the sides of a dark chamber covered with dust, and were chiefly treatises on religion, lives of saints, and copies of the Evangelists. There were several Armenian manuscripts of the Gospels, but none of them appeared to be of any value. An odd volume of Pope's Homer was shown to the party as a curiosity.

Sir Robert Ker Porter gives us some interesting information respecting this seat of the Armenian primate. The monastery of Etchmiatzin was founded by St Gregory in A.D. 304, who also founded the other churches in its vicinity. It is now the sole habitable remains of a large city called Valarsapat, which in ancient times surrounded this great ecclesiastical establishment; and vestiges of its magnitude may yet be traced in various places at a considerable distance from the monastery, although at present it is represented by a few wooden houses inhabited by Armenian Christians, who, under the protection of the holy towers of the churches, live in humble industry and contentment. The architecture of the cathedral is described as of a very coarse and rough style. A three-arched gateway, surmounted by a heavy and pointed tower, leads to the chief entrance. The vestibule is very large, and contains a number of fretted and carved ornaments, executed apparently with

VOL. I.

much labour but in very bad taste. The interior of the church is peculiarly dark and gloomy, containing some miserable legendary representations of saints painted on the walls, black transcripts of devout Armenian sentences, and imitations of arabesque decorations. "The altar," says Sir Robert Ker Porter, "still blazed with gold and jewels, although some years ago a great part of its riches was purloined by one of the brethren, whose previous misconduct in other respects had been charitably borne with for some time, under the hope of penitence and amendment, but he completed his train of errors by the crimes of murder and sacrilege. Finding it necessary to remove out of his way more than one individual before he could get possession of the treasure in the sacristy, he did it by poison; and having accomplished his object, the holy vessels were secretly dispatched to Astrachan, and sold. But the theft and the perpetrator being immediately discovered, he was consigned to a punishment worthy the wisdom and mercy of his judges-to be immured in a solitary cell for life. If ever repentance be to visit a hardened wretch, it certainly must be in such a situation, where for years he has no other companions than his own conscience, and the recollections of a religion he has so obstinately despised. The man was still alive in his confinement when I was at the monastery." The great church, dedicated to the Virgin Mary, is situated within the walls of the monastery; the second is about the half of a mile to the south of it, and is de. dicated to a female saint called Kayi-Ann, who, the monks declared to Sir Robert Ker Porter, was born in Britain. The third church is distant from the last about two miles to the south-west, and is dedicated to the female saint, St Repsima, whose skull, together with the arm of St Gregory, as was previously mentioned, is preserved among the sacred relics of the monastery.

The Armenians preserve a fragment of Noah's Ark in the monastery of Etchmiatzin, and the monks thus account for the manner in which they obtained it.

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Many hundred years ago a certain pious brother of the order undertook the hitherto unattempted task of ascending to the top of the mountain of Ararat, to bring away some part of the Ark, to be preserved in a shrine in the church at the foot. But ere he had gone far over the snows of the last terrible region of ice and cold he fell asleep, and an angel appearing to him in a vision, told him that beyond such a point no mortal was permitted to pass since the descent of Noah; but that, in reward to the singular piety of the convent, a heavenly messenger had been commanded to bring this, its devout brother, a plank of the holy ship, which, at his awaking, he would find at his side. When the monk arose, he found it was as the angel said, and shouldered the precious relic in triumph to the monastery.

The Armenian Patriarch is chief ruler of the whole Armenian Church, with the exception of that portion of it which acknowledges the supremacy of the Pope. According to Sir Robert Ker Porter, he is elected by a convocation of bishops from the different monasteries, which is termed the Synod of Cardinals, who select the Patriarch from among the most venerated bishops, but he may also be nominated by his predecessor. The Patriarch assumes the titles of "Servant of Jesus Christ, and by His grace Catholicos of all the Armenians, Supreme Patriarch of the Holy Church Apostolic of Christ, and of the Holy Seat of Etchmiatzin at Ararat." He appoints the archbishops and bishops of the different dioceses. The high dignitaries, as in the Greek Church, are always selected in the convents. The appointment of the curates, who are generally married, is vested in the bishops.

In the Armenian Church, the ordination of priests and deacons is conducted in the following manner:-When a person desires to enter the secular ecclesiastical state, he first communicates his wish to his bishop, who consigns the candidate to an official denominated an archimandrite, that he may be instructed in the duties of the clerical office;

and when he is considered sufficiently prepared, the ordination is held. Every candidate is obliged to reside forty days in a church. They begin by moistening the palms of his hands with holy oil, they then apply cotton, and unite them by means of a ribbon. During this time the candidate's dress consists simply of a long and wide vest of cotton cloth, which covers the body from the shoulders to the feet, which are naked. He is allowed only one meal in the day, consisting of a small quantity of pulse, and he is only permitted to go out of the church about sunset, when he must return immediately. At the expiration of the forty days he has the charge of a parish confided to him, for there are no other secular priests in the Armenian Church besides the curates. The inferior clergy are represented as being generally very ignorant, but it is admitted that their lives are unimpeachable.

In the article ARMENIA we have alluded to the manner in which they conduct their public worship, and the mode in which they administer the sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist. Tavernier informs us, that the Eucharist is never administered during the time of their Lent, for then they never recite their service except on Sundays, when it is called a Low Mass, on which occasion the priest is never seen by the people, a curtain being drawn before the altar, and only the gospel for the day and the Creed are read aloud. The convents for both sexes have commonly no fixed revenues. Individuals who devote themselves to the monastic life must support themselves at their own expense, and bequests to these establishments are neither frequent nor considerable. The Armenian clergy are described as being perhaps the poorest of all Christian clergy, subsisting chiefly on the alms of the pious. The revenues are thus composed: 1. The holy oil used in baptisms and confirmations is made and dispensed solely at the patriarchial convent of Etchmiatzin once in seven years. The making of this oil is vested in the Patriarch, and Tavernier

says that he uses all sorts of fragrant flowers, and aromatic drugs; but that the principal flower is that which the Armenians in their language call balasanjagué, which is known to us under the name of the Flower of Paradise. When the oil is made, the Patriarch sends it in bottles to all the convents in Asia, Europe, and Africa, and without it infants cannot be baptized. At the septennial period, however, when the oil is made, a vast number of Armenians also proceed to Etchmiatzin from different places in Asia and Europe, and a rate is paid for it according to the ability of the recipient. 2. Every Armenian contributes to his bishop annually forty pounds of wheat in kind, the value of which in money is remitted to Etchmiatzin. 3. The amount of the alms received in churches on the occasion of marriages is sent by the curates to their diocesan bishops, who transmit them to the same metropolitan convent of the Patriarch. The sum total of these revenues is appropriated to the support of the Patriarch, and the archbishops and bishops. The sustenance of the curates is derived chiefly from alms bestowed at baptisms, burials, and prayers for the benediction of each house, which last ceremony takes place twice every year. In the Russian Ultra-Caucasian provinces every Armenian is bound to pay the curate for baptizing a child the sum of three abazes, or nearly equivalent to two shillings of our money.

The holy oil, however, is generally admitted to be a source of great profit, and is used for other purposes connected with the religious observances of the Armenians. A learned traveller, Mr Whittington, who accomplished a journey through part of Little Tartary in 1816, and who gives an interesting account of some of the Armenian, Greek, and Tartar settlements in that portion of the Russian Empire, visited the Armenian settlement of Nachtchivan, on the right bank of the Don, where he was present on a Sunday at a grand ceremony of the Armenian inhabitants of that place.

They had just completed their principal church, the building of which had occupied them some years, and they had fixed that day for the elevation of the great cross which surmounts the central dome. When Mr Whittington and his party arrived at the church, they found it already crowded with the inhabitants of both sexes, and the cross deposited in the centre. The women, dressed in black, and having white vails, occupied a distinct portion of the aisle, from the transepts to the western door. The bishop, when the party entered, was celebrating the communion according to the Armenian ritual, and after the usual communion service was concluded, the ceremony of the day commenced. The officiating priests, habited in rich dresses, formed a circle round the spot where the cross was deposited, while the bishop, who wore a splendid mitre, after reading and chaunting in the Armenian language, proceeded to wash the cross first with water and then with wine. A little silver vessel, shaped like a dove, was next exhibited, "from which he poured into a plate the precious ointment which is only made at a convent near Ararat," namely, the convent of Etchmiatzin. "This," says our traveller, "he applied with his thumb to the four extremities, and to the intersecting points of the cross, covering the places afterwards with cotton, which the priests in attendance farther secured by binding over it first paper and then linen cloths. At particular parts of the ceremony the noise of the chaunt was heightened by cymbals, by the chime of a metal cup struck by a boy with a metal clapper, and by little silver bells attached to a round plate of silver, which, being fixed at the extremity of a long staff, was violently shaken at intervals. After all present had separately advanced and kissed the cross, it was carried out into the square before the church, and the scene was very pleasing as it was raised by pulleys to its place. The whole square was filled with groupes of Armenian figures, all evidently watching the ascending cross, and the loud

chaunts of the priests continued in the open air, as it slowly rose and reached its destined situation."

We have already also mentioned the heresy which crept into the Armenian Church, emanating from the sect of the Monophysites, respecting the exclusively divine nature of Christ, which is still maintained. The spread of this heresy caused a schism in that Church, and hence there are some communities of what are called Orthodox Armenians who do not acknowledge the authority of the Patriarch of Etchmiatzin, and who are implacable enemies of the schismatic church, although they form one nation and speak the same language. The schism to which we allude took place after the General Council of Chalcedon held in A.D. 451, the Catholic Armenians, like most Christians of other communions, recognizing two natures in Christ, the divine and the human. Two parties were thus formed in the Armenian Church, which have continued to the present day.

"The vexations," says a writer in the Asiatic Journal (1833), "exercised by the Byzantine Emperors in the two Armenias, the rapid progress of the Arabs in Egypt and Mesopotamia in the eighth century, and other circumstances, brought on the catastrophe of 813, when the Patriarch John of Osni arrogated to himself the title of chief of the Armenian nation, appeared in the presence of Montasem, son of the Caliph Haroun al Raschid, who reigned at that period over Armenia and the adjoining countries, with the view of having himself declared independent of the then universal church, and carried matters so far as to alter the calendar, and prohibit the Armenians from celebrating the Festivals according to the ancient ritual. In consequence, the Catholic Armenians were for two centuries constrained to conceal their creed, and it was not till the Crusaders molested the Turks that they were able to retire into Cilicia, where they formed a kingdom. From that period till the fourteenth century, a long succession of kings and patriarchs reigned

in that country. Although the schismatic Armenians had, in the meantime, repeatedly proposed a national council, and the acts of the Patriarch John of Osni had been condemned by the Council of Adana, the schism still subsisted, and possibly the Crusaders may have contributed materially to increase the difficulty of a general union of the Armenian with the Romish Church. The progress of the Mussulmans put an end to the kingdom of Cilicia, and the last patriarch of the Catholic Armenians took refuge in Libanus, where his successors retain the title of Patriarch of the Armenian nation, in which character they are recognized by the Court of Rome. The schismatic Armenians, namely, those who acknowledge the jurisdiction of the Patriarch at Etchmiatzin, being not only the more numerous, but the richer and more powerful party, easily obtained permission from the Turks for the free exercise of their worship under the Patriarch approved by the Porte, whilst the Catholic Armenians, dispersed, and without an ac knowledged head, with difficulty preserved their churches and their worship. They were, however, always tolerated in Georgia, Diarbekr, and a great part of Mesopotamia. From what has been said, therefore, it is not difficult to imagine which of the two parties would become the victim of the persecutions dictated by a jealousy which such a schism necessarily occasioned. Both submitted to a government which, perfectly indifferent about the question in litigation, obeyed only the first impulse dictated by a plausible pretext or by private interest. Since the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottomans, the Catholic Armenians have often experienced persecutions in Turkey. Every one of these was excited in some measure by the schismatic Armenians; in fact, the latter being recognized by the Turkish government as the only religious head of the Armenian nation, had, in the estimation of the Ottomans, the right and even the obligation of judging the conduct of their countrymen, and in case of necessity of

applying to the executive authority, which, without any farther investigation, never rejected the propositions of the Patriarch. It is sufficient to refer to the persecution of 1707, which lasted nearly seven years, to that of 1810, that of 1811, which took place at Aughra, and to the vexations which continued without intermission from 1812 till 1816. In 1819, the secular priests of the Catholic Armenians, being solicited by their own Patriarch Paul, who was menaced with death, signed a sort of act of religious submission to the Patriarch at Etchmiatzin, but the mass of the Armenian Catholics made a formal protest, which occasioned persecutions for more than a year. In this predicament, the Porte for the first time made more careful inquiries than usual, and caused some of the instigators of the persecution to be executed; but the effect expected from this vigorous measure was temporary, and it is known to what a degree of severity the Patriarch succeeded, in 1827 and 1828, in impelling the Turkish government against the Catholic Armenians. Great cruelties were committed upon men, women, and children, and numbers of peaceable and innocent families were plunged into misery. The Armenian Patriarch at Constantinople pointed out to the ministers of the Porte the connection which his countrymen whom he persecuted kept up with the Franks, and suggested to them that they were more attached to the Christian Powers than to the Grand Signior, and that consequently they were faithless and dangerous subjects. In order to dispose Sultan Mahmoud the more readily to adopt the plan of persecution long prepared against them, they were described as partizans of the Janissaries. It is an invariable principle of the Turkish government never to interfere with the internal affairs of the different Christian communities living under its rule, and it contents itself with holding their chiefs responsible for the good conduct of the individuals, and for their fidelity as subjects of the Ottoman Empire. The

Porte has never troubled itself about the nature of the schism which divides the Armenian nation, and is probably ignorant that it exists; but with respect to internal and religious police, by surrendering it to the Armenian Patriarch as the sole supreme religious chief of that nation, it has made him the sovereign arbiter of a portion of the Armenians, who, so far from recognizing him as their spiritual chief, submit by constraint alone to his decision. The Catholic Armenians, however, had a bishop at Constantinople prior to the catastrophe of 1828, but this prelate never held any intercourse with the Porte, and was bound on all occasions to apply to the Patriarch at Etchmiatzin, or his representative at Constantinople, who naturally did what suited the interests of his own community. This untoward position of the Catholic Armenians became still more apparent, when the Porte, which, in 1828, found itself accused of injustice and precipitation, wishing to repair the evil it had done, resolved to recall from exile the unhappy victims of its persecution. A vast number of firmans of recall had been issued, and only a small number of families, of little consideration, returned; and even these experienced unexpected difficulties. On inquiry into the causes of this delay, and of the obstacles opposed to the execution of a measure equally humane and equitable, these were found to result from the influence of the powerful persons among the Armenians, or the unlimited power of the Patriarch, to whom, as chief of the nation, the firmans had been transmitted, and who had kept them back, or conveyed them only to those whose presence he did not fear."

The Armenians have many peculiarities connected with their religious rites and customs which are worthy of notice. Like the Asiatics in general, widowers and widows marry only with each other, it being considered disgraceful for an unmarried man to marry a widow. By their ecclesiastical law divorce is prohibited, yet causes of separation are admitted, espe