Christianity first spread to Armenia prior to the official adoption of the faith in the Kingdom of Greater Armenia in the early fourth century, although the details are obscure. Greater Armenia was the first state (or one of the first states) to adopt Christianity as its state religion. The Arsacid king of Armenia at the time, Trdat, was converted by Gregory the Illuminator, who became the first head of the Armenian Church. The traditional date for the conversion of Armenia is 301, although alternative dates have been proposed by scholars ranging from 284 to no later than 325. While Armenia's church structure was established at this time, it took longer for Christianity to fully take root in the country. The greatest progress came after the invention of the Armenian alphabet by Mesrop Mashtots and the translation of the Bible and liturgy into Armenian in the fifth century.
The Christianization of Armenia is regarded as one of the most important events in Armenian history, significantly shaping the people's identity, and turning Armenia away from its centuries-long links to the Iranian world. Additionally, the Armenian Church is considered to have provided a structure for the preservation of Armenian identity in the absence of Armenian political independence.
Background
Prior to Christianization, Armenians mostly practiced a syncretic form of Zoroastrianism (probably adopted during the Achaemenid period) with significant native Armenian and other religious elements. The Kingdom of Greater Armenia had been ruled by members of the Parthian Arsacid dynasty since the first century AD. Armenia largely managed to maintain an independent existence between its two powerful neighbors, the Parthian and Roman empires, which had reached a compromise in the first century whereby Armenia would be ruled by an Arsacid prince who would be confirmed by Rome.
The overthrow of the Parthian dynasty in Iran and the rise of the Sasanians in the third century dramatically changed the political situation. Conflict between Rome and Iran intensified, while the Armenian Arsacids entered into a "family feud" with the Sasanians to avenge their overthrown Parthian kinsmen. As a result, Armenia became more closely aligned with the Roman Empire and was attacked and at times occupied by the Sasanians. A period of Sasanian occupation ended with the restoration of the Arsacid Trdat III (who later converted to Christianity) to the throne of Greater Armenia during the reign of Diocletian (r. 284–305). This possibly occurred in 298/9, coinciding with the Peace of Nisibis, which followed a Roman victory over the Sasanians; however, other dates have been proposed for Trdat's restoration.
Early spread of Christianity
Christianity began to spread in Armenia before the kingdom's conversion in the early fourth century, first coming from the religion's birthplace in Judea via Syria and Mesopotamia. Some traditions tell of evangelizing by Addai of Edessa in the first century, while others claim that the apostles Thaddeus and Bartholomew preached in Armenia. Thaddeus is said to have come to proselytize in Armenia, where he was martyred by the Armenian king Sanatruk at Artaz, near Maku. Later, this story was connected to that of Gregory the Illuminator by placing his conception at Thaddeus' tomb. However, these traditions, which establish apostolic succession for the Armenian Church, are considered apocryphal.
In the second century, the church father Tertullian described the Armenians as a people who had received Christianity. Tertullian lists various people who have accepted religion but the list is a verbatim quotation from Acts 2.9 where in the place of Armenia the Greek text has Judaea. Ancient writers proposed names of other countries. Tertullian and Augustine have Armenia, Jerome has Syria, John Chrysostom has India, and Eusebius omits it, so Tertullian's evidence is to be rejected.
In the mid-third century, Bishop Dionysius of Alexandria wrote a letter to an Armenian bishop called Meruzanes, which suggests that a considerable Christian community existed in Armenia by this time. The location of Meruzanes is not known for certain. Based on the bishop's name, Nicholas Adontz argues that he was located in district of Sophene in southern Armenia.
The southern districts of Armenia were ruled by autonomous principalities or satrapies which entered the Roman orbit after the Peace of Nisibis in 299. Nina Garsoïan suggests that the traditional identification of Armenia as the first Christian state may actually reflect the early conversion of the southern satrapies, which were viewed as sovereign Armenian states.
Thus, Christianity came to Armenia in two successive currents: a Syriac current coming to the country's southern regions from the south via Syria and Mesopotamia, and a later Greek current coming to the Arsacid kingdom of Armenia from the west via Asia Minor in the early fourth century.
Jude Thaddeus the Apostle
The Armenian historian Movses Khorenatsi identifies the Gentiles mentioned in the Gospel of John as Armenian dignitaries sent by King Abgar of Edessa (whom Khorenatsi calls an Armenian king). According to this account, these envoys petitioned Christ to visit Edessa and heal the ailing monarch. Although Jesus did not travel in person, he reportedly promised to send a disciple in his stead. Following the Ascension, the Apostle Thaddeus arrived in Edessa, where his preaching and miraculous healings led to Abgar's conversion. While some traditions distinguish between the Apostle Thaddeus and Thaddeus Didymus (one of the Seventy-two Disciples), Armenian historiography attributes these acts to the Apostle himself. After establishing the church in Edessa and consecrating Addai as bishop, Thaddeus traveled to Mardistan under a royal mandate. There, he approached the court of King Sanatruk (Abgar's nephew). Although the Apostle initially succeeded in converting Sanatruk to Christianity, the King eventually apostatized, renouncing his new faith under intense pressure from the Armenian nobility.
Through Thaddeus's ministry, numerous members of the royal court embraced Christianity, including the King's own daughter, Sandukht. Upon learning of these conversions, Sanatruk ordered the execution of the converts and the arrest of both the Princess and the Apostle. Legend holds that Thaddeus was miraculously released, allowing him to provide spiritual solace to the imprisoned Princess and the Christian community. Despite continued persecution, Thaddeus persisted in his mission until he was eventually recaptured. According to the hagiographic tradition of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Thaddeus suffered martyrdom in AD 66 in Armenia by the order of Armenia's King Sanatruk, along with Bartholomew the Apostle and Saint Sandukht. According to this tradition, his tomb is located at the Monastery of Saint Thaddeus in Qareh Kelisa, West Azerbaijan Province, Iran.
Bartholomew the Apostle
Along with his fellow apostle Jude "Thaddeus", Bartholomew is reputed to have brought and preach Christianity to Armenia in the 1st century. Thus, both saints are considered the patron saints of the Armenian Apostolic Church. According to these traditions, Bartholomew is the second Catholicos-Patriarch of the Armenian Apostolic Church.
Christian tradition offers three accounts of Bartholomew's death: "One speaks of his being kidnapped, beaten unconscious, and cast into the sea to drown."
In the Hellenic tradition, Bartholomew was executed in Albanopolis in Armenia, where he was martyred for having converted Polymius, the local king, to Christianity (no historical Armenian king by this name is known). Enraged by the monarch's conversion, and fearing a Roman backlash, King Polymius's brother, Prince Astyages, ordered Bartholomew's torture and execution. However, this version of the story appears ahistorical, as there are no records of any Armenian king of the Arsacid dynasty of Armenia with the name "Polymius". Other accounts of his martyrdom name the king as either Agrippa (identified with Tigranes VI), or Sanatruk, king of Armenia.
The 13th-century Saint Bartholomew Monastery was a prominent Armenian monastery constructed at the presumed site of Bartholomew's martyrdom in Vaspurakan, Greater Armenia (now in southeastern Turkey).
Conversion of the Armenian kingdom
Traditional account
The traditional account of the Christianization of Armenia comes from The History of the Armenians and The Teaching of St. Gregory, fifth century works attributed to Agathangelos which combine fact and legend. There are Greek, Arabic and Syriac versions which predate the Armenian version.
According to the account of Agathangelos, in the third century the Armenian king, whom Agathangelos calls Khosrov, fought against the newly established Sasanian dynasty in Iran; the latter sought to destroy the Armenian Arsacids as the last remnant of the Parthian dynasty they had supplanted. The Sasanians sent a Parthian nobleman called Anak to gain the confidence of the Armenian king and kill him. Anak succeeded in murdering Khosrov and most of the royal family, but he and his family were then killed by Armenian nobles. After this, Khosrov's son Trdat (Tiridates) was taken to live in Rome, and Anak's son was taken to Caesaria in Cappadocia and raised by Christians, who gave him the name Gregory.
Later, Trdat reclaimed the Armenian throne with Roman assistance. Gregory went to Armenia to enter the service Trdat, who, following his Roman overlord Diocletian, persecuted Christians. After Gregory refused to sacrifice to the goddess Anahit, the king had Gregory imprisoned and subjected to many tortures. Once Trdat discovered that Gregory was the son of his father's killer, he had Gregory thrown into a deep pit called Khor Virap near Artaxata, where he remained for thirteen (or fifteen) years. In the meantime, a group of Christian nuns fleeing from the Roman Empire were put to death on Trdat's orders. In Agathangelos's history, Gregory is miraculously saved and brought out from the pit after Trdat's sister Khosrovidukht sees a vision. Gregory then healed the king, who, Agathangelos writes, had been transformed into a wild boar for his sinful behavior. Trdat and his court accepted Christianity, making Armenia the first state to adopt Christianity as its official religion.
After being released, Gregory preached the Christian faith in Armenia and erected shrines to the martyred nuns Gayane and Hripsime in Vagharshapat on a spot indicated to him in a vision. Vagharshapat later became home to the mother church of Armenian Christianity and, by medieval times, called Ejmiatsin ("descent of the only-begotten") in reference to Gregory's vision. Gregory, sometimes accompanied by Trdat, went around Armenia destroying pagan temples, defeating the armed resistance of the pagan priests. Gregory then went to Caesarea with a retinue of Armenian princes and was consecrated bishop of Armenia by Leontius of Caesarea. Until the death of Nerses I in the late fourth century, Gregory's successors would go to Caesarea to be confirmed as bishops of Armenia, and Armenia remained under the titular authority of the metropolitans of Caesarea.
Returning to Armenia with Christian assistants from Caesarea, Gregory raised churches in place of the destroyed pagan temples and seized their estates and wealth for the Armenian Church and his house. On the site of the destroyed temple to Vahagn at Ashtishat, Gregory raised a church which became the original center of the Armenian Church and remained so until after the partition of the country in the Peace of Acilisene of 384 and 387. Gregory met King Trdat near the town of Bagavan and baptized the Armenian king, army and people in the Euphrates. In another version of Agathangelos's history surviving only in translation, Gregory also baptizes together with Trdat the kings of Caucasian Albania, Georgia and Lazica/Abkhazia. He founded schools for the Christian education of children, where the languages of instruction were Greek and Syriac. He established the ecclesiastical structure of Armenia, appointing as bishops some of the children of pagan priests.
Now, many of the elements of the Agathangelos narrative are recognized as legendary, although a number of details are supported by other sources. Other sources confirm the leadership of Gregory and his descendants over the early Armenian church, as well as Gregory's consecration by Leontius at Caesarea during a church council in 314. However, the history of Agathangelos depicts the spread of Christianity of Armenia as having occurred practically entirely within Gregory's lifetime, when, in fact, it was a more gradual process that met resistance. Much of the description of Gregory's proselytizing is taken from the information about Mesrop Mashtots's activities in Koriun's Life of Mashtots.