17:30,
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 20, ARMENPRESS. The General Director of Russia’s Rosatom State Corporation Alexey Likhachev will visit Armenia in the beginning of November.
The Ministry of Territorial Administration and Infrastructures spokesperson Sona Harutyunyan told ARMENPRESS that the agenda of the visit includes the discussions on the double extension of the Armenian Nuclear Power Plant’s lifecycle and the construction of a new nuclear power plant.
Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan
The Armenian Court of Appeal (CoA) has left David Tonoyan, a former Armenian Defence Minister, who is accused of embezzlement in supply of weapons, behind bars.
The “Caucasian Knot” has reported that on September 30, the National Security Service (NSS) of Armenia reported that David Tonoyan, a former head of the Ministry of Defence (MoD), was detained and arrested on suspicion of embezzling about USD 4.7 million when supplying weapons. David Galstyan, the head of the supplying company, was detained under the same case. Tonoyan refuses to plead guilty; his defence decided to appeal against his arrest at the CoA.
On October 15, the Armenian CoA, chaired by Judge Tigran Saakyan, considered the defence’s appeal against the first-instance court’s ruling to arrest David Tonoyan, and left him in custody, his advocate, Sergey Ovannisyan, told the “Caucasian Knot” correspondent, adding that so far, the defence has not received the judicial act, but after receiving and studying it, the advocates plan to appeal against the CoA’s decision at the cassation instance.
This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on at 05:12 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.
Author: Armine Martirosyan; Source: CK correspondent
Source:
© Caucasian Knot
This summer, the health department of the Armenian Mission organized a health camp meeting in the resort village of Hankavan, situated in the picturesque valley of the Marmarik River. More than 140 people took part, among them the heads of the health department of local churches of the Armenian Mission, pastors, church members, and community members.
The camp meeting was preceded by a two-month course on healthy lifestyles for all interested church members, including pastors, and heads of the health departments of local churches.
From May 12 to July 12, more than 20 speakers from nine countries taught 45 students spiritual principles and medical theory. The final stage of the training took place during the camp meeting.
From the very first day of the camp meeting until the last, God’s presence was felt.
A rich program was prepared for the camp participants, including morning and evening services; seminars on healthy lifestyle, prevention, and treatment of diseases, first aid; consultations with doctors; excursions to the hot spring; massages; classes for teaching the technique of Scandinavian walking; and therapeutic gymnastics.
In the morning, everyone had the opportunity to climb the mountain guided by a Nordic walking instructor, and enjoy the views that mesmerized everyone with their beauty.
Every day the chefs treated attendees to new vegetarian dishes. This dietary style was new to many, and they tried it for the first time. Everything was delicious and attractive.
The morning and evening services were especially inspiring; in the morning meetings, group members pondered what the Bible says about health and our relationship to it.
Every evening everyone met in the hall for joint worship, singing, games, and socializing.
The evening meetings were devoted to the theme “God is Calling You,” based on the example of the lives of Bible heroes who responded to the call of God. Participants discussed how to understand what God calls us to, how to begin to act in accordance with God’s calling, and what is necessary in order not to deviate from the chosen path.
On Saturday, four people made a covenant with the Lord through baptism in the Marmarik River, including a student of the healthy lifestyle course.
Saturday night’s meeting was no less celebratory; those who were baptized accepted congratulations and gifts, and all students of the healthy lifestyle course received certificates confirming their studies and completion of the course. And ten of the most active and successful students in their studies were awarded special gifts.
All camp participants who were not members of the Adventist church received the wonderful book “Keys to Health” as a gift.
On Sunday, a health exhibition featured instructors introducing visitors to the eight basic principles of a healthy lifestyle. They also conducted a number of medical examinations, determined the biological age of anyone interested to know theirs, and at the end, participants had the opportunity to consult with doctors who gave practical recommendations on making healthy changes in their lifestyle.
The time spent at the camp flew by very quickly and left fond memories, and organizers hope that camp participants will continue to lead a healthy lifestyle in the future, applying the knowledge gained during the event.
At this camp, the leaders of health departments, students of healthy lifestyle courses, and pastors, under God’s leadership presented as a team the message of a healthy lifestyle and the message of salvation, which was an incredible blessing for all camp participants. Many people have already felt the miraculous effect of a healthy lifestyle because health is what people most of all strive to preserve, but least of all cherish.
Let’s take care of our health and always remember the words from Scripture: “Don’t you know that you are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God lives in you? The temple of God is holy; and you are this temple” (1 Corinthians 3:16, 17).
“In many places, there are souls who have not yet heard the message. From this time on, medical missionary work must be done with a zeal with which it has never been done. This work is the door through which the truth will enter the great cities ” (Ellen G. White, Health Councils, p. 392).
This article was originally published on the Euro-Asia Division’s news site.
An exhibition of works by famous Armenian painters Hovhannes Aivazovsky, Gevorg Bashinjaghyan, Martiros Saryan, Vardges Surenyants and Hakob Kojoyan opened today at the Quirinal Palace under the auspices of the Presidents of Armenia and Italy.
Presidents Armen Sarkissian and Sergio Matarella watched the exhibition.
A similar Italian exhibition featuring works by 18th century Italian artists Giovanni Antonio Canal (Canaletto), Bernardo Bellotto, Francesco Guardi and Michele Marieschi was organized in September 2020 at the residence of the President of the Republic of Armenia.
According to President Armen Sarkissian, such exhibitions are a testimony to the deep and close friendly and warm relations between the peoples of Armenia and Italy. “Art unites peoples, which is more than obvious in the case of the Armenian and Italian peoples with ancient roots of friendship. And this is exactly what is called the dialogue of civilizations, the dialogue of cultures, the dialogue of the inner world and the talent of nations,” he said.
The President of Armenia noted that the works presented at the Quirinal Palace are part of the rich Armenian cultural heritage, which we show the greatest respect for and which we share with our friends.
According to him, this talented constellation of Armenian artists – Hovhannes Aivazovsky, Gevorg Bashinjaghyan, Martiros Saryan, Vardges Surenyants, Hakob Kojoyan – is an inseparable part not only of our national but also of world heritage. Some of these artists, he said, once had close ties with Italy and the Italian people. According to the President, there is a huge treasury of Armenian cultural and spiritual values in Italy, represented by the heritage of St. Lazarus Mekhitarist Congregation.
15:14, 6 October, 2021
YEREVAN, OCTOBER 6, ARMENPRESS. Dialogue between Tehran and Moscow is among the priorities of the new government of the Islamic Republic’s policy of good-neighborliness, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian said.
“We would like to highlight that in the good-neighborliness of our new government, Moscow is our priority, of course”, he said.
The top diplomat emphasized that regular contacts between the presidents and his personal presence on a visit to Moscow demonstrate that the relations between both countries “are very close and privileged”. “We must work to achieve new objectives and a major leap in our bilateral relations”, he continued.
According to the Iranian top diplomat, the current negotiations with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov provide “a very good opportunity to go over the regional agenda”. “I’m talking about the South Caucasus, Afghanistan, and Yemen”, he specified.
The molecular biologists have won the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries of receptors for temperature and touch, the Nobel Committee has announced in Stockholm.
The Nobel Prize for Medicine starts a week of prizes
David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian have been awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
The Nobel Committee’s Thomas Perlmann said Julius and Patapoutian had “unlocked one of the secrets of nature,” and that is how we sense and feel our way around in the world. Our sense of touch, how we sense depth, reach out for things, and also how we experience pain.
In a year when many may have expected the prize to go to at least one of the makers of a COVID-19 vaccine, Perlmann said this was deemed the most important discovery in Physiology or Medicine in 2021. He said he couldn’t say more without “breaking confidentiality.”
This is basic research, which the committee says will have benefits for future drug development.
As for the developments in coronavirus research over the past year and a half, the committee would only say that it worked on the basis of discoveries that had been nominated.
They wouldn’t say whether drug and vaccine discoveries against SARS-CoV-2 had been nominated.
Julius and Patapoutian’s work will be used in future drug developments
We move about in the world as though it were second nature — and, indeed, it is.
But until this novel research into proprioception, the Nobel Committee says we had yet to work out how temperature and mechanical stimuli get converted into electrical impulses in the human nervous system.
That is how we sense and perceive temperature, and even pain, and why those senses and perceptions are different for many people.
Some of us feel the cold more than others. Some of us can walk over burning coals, and others simply can’t stand the heat.
And it’s the way that the nervous system interprets those electrical impulses that determines how we react and feel.
Perhaps that’s why David Julius landed on capsaicin as a basis for his research.
Capsaicin is a chemical found in chili peppers. It’s what makes chilis burn the nerve endings on our tongues or our eyes if we touch them after cutting up a chili.
Julius used that chemical irritant and the burning sensation it creates “to identify a sensor in the nerve endings of the skin that responds to heat.”
His work led to the discovery of TRPV1, an ion channel that is activated by painful heat. Ion channels are proteins that allow ions, such as sodium, potassium, calcium, to pass through the cell membrane. They are vital for the nervous system, the contraction of the heart and skeletal muscle and other physiological functions.
And this particular one allows us to understand pain just a little bit better.
Ardem Patapoutian, meanwhile, used “pressure-sensitive cells to discover a novel class of sensors that respond to mechanical stimuli in the skin and internal organs,” the committee writes.
What did Patapoutian’s team do? They poked a cell with a small pipette (a micropipette) and watched how 72 individual genes within the cell reacted.
They found two genes within the cell that were insensitive to their being poked. But it was more than that: Those genes, it seems, could switch their sensitivity off.
The two genes were names Piezo1 and Piezo2. “Sensory neurons were found to express high levels of Piezo2 and further studies firmly established that Piezo1 and Piezo2 are ion channels that are directly activated” when pressure is exerted on cell membranes.
It’s now said that TRP and Piezo channels influence a range of physiological functions that depend on how we sense temperature or “mechanical stimuli” — that could be the prick of a vaccine needle — and how we adapt to those sensations.
Placed together, the discoveries have been influential for our understanding about core body temperature, inflammatory pain, protective reflexes, respiration, blood pressure, and urination.
“This knowledge,” says the Nobel Committee, “is being used to develop treatments for a wide range of disease conditions, including chronic pain.”
David Julius is a biochemist and professor of physiology at the University of California, San Francisco. In 2020, Julius was awarded the Kavli Prize in Neuroscience for this same body of research. It was cited as having created new approaches for the development of safe and targeted painkillers that may have lower addictive properties than opioids.
Ardem Patapoutian, a professor of neuroscience at Scripps Research, an institute in California in the US, shared that 2020 Kavli Prize with Julius. It wasn’t the first time: In 2019, they shared the Rosenstiel Award for Distinguished Work in Basic Medical Research. And now they share a Nobel Prize.
Medicine is always the first in a week of Nobel Prizes. Tuesday is traditionally the day for the Physics prize and Wednesday it’s Chemistry.
Later in the week, there will be Nobel Prizes for Literature and Peace, and then Economic Sciences.
In 2020, the Medicine prize was won by Harvey J. Alter, Michael Houghton und Charles M. Rice for the discovery of the Hepatitis C virus.
The Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine has been awarded 111 since the prize’s first year in 1901. It’s gone to 222 scientists, including two married couples, but only 12 women.
This year’s winners receive cash prize of 10 million Swedish Krona (about €980,000), a Nobel Medal and a range of other trinkets.
But they will have to wait until December 10, because tradition also has it that the prizes is handed out at a gala dinner in Stockholm.
Coronavirus: 1066 new cases confirmed in Armenia
Share
11:13, 25 September, 2021
YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 25, ARMENPRESS. 1066 new cases of COVID-19 were confirmed over the last 24 hours, bringing the total cumulative number of confirmed cases to 257,620, the Armenian healthcare ministry reported.
6606 tests were administered.
586 people recovered, bringing the total recoveries to 239,113.
23 people died, bringing the death toll to 5239.This number doesn’t include the deaths of 1201 other individuals (2 in the last 24 hours) infected with COVID-19 who succumbed to co-morbidities.
As of September 25, the number of active cases stood at 12,067.
Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan
In memory of the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War, a CSUN student shares her family’s story to highlight the effects of intergenerational trauma caused by the Armenian Genocide.
Ofelya’s great grandmother Hayastan (left of first row) and great grandfather Vagharshak (right of first row), along with her grandfather Albert (boy in the back row holding the dog).
September 27, 2021
Many Armenians believed the recent war to be a continuation of the Armenian Genocide, as thousands of indeginous Armenians were marched out of their homeland by Turkish-backed Azerbaijani forces.
In order to understand the current climate in the region, one must understand its past.
As an Armenian immigrant from the village of Gyumri, Hunanyan knows firsthand the effects of intergenerational trauma and the importance of worldwide recognition of the Armenian Genocide, in which her family experienced deep tragedy and loss.
“The story I’m going to tell is from my dad’s side, it’s his grandma’s story. During the genocide she was a 17 or 18-year-old girl. My great-grandmother’s name was Hayastan. This was in 1918 when the genocide was still happening,” Hunanyan said.
Hayastan was confronted by a group of Turkish men, who forced her and other women to remove their clothing and dance. Around 40 women were killed. Some were kidnapped and others, in a fit of desperation, killed themselves hoping to escape imminent death and torture.
Hayastan was one of the women who was taken. While women around her were being killed and raped, she remained unharmed. When the head Pasha, a high-ranking Ottoman government official, saw her, he broke down in tears.
“When he saw my great-grandmother, he said, ‘I’m not going to hurt you because you look like my sister.’ He started crying and that’s how my great grandmother survived. He told a Turkish soldier to take her and cross the border to Armenia,” Hunanyan said.
Hayastan was terrified to share her story with her husband, fearing that he would reject her. She reunited with her uncle for a few days until she worked up the courage to see her husband, who accepted her story and embraced her with open arms. Sadly, Hayastan’s father was killed by Turkish soldiers.
“Every year during the anniversary of the genocide, my family always gets together and shares their stories with each other of how their relatives survived the genocide,” Hunanyan said. “Every year when I was in Armenia, we would go to the Armenian Genocide memorial statue with flowers. It’s important for us to respect the lives lost and to remember them.”
The genocide has left a massive void in Hunanyan’s family. She has family members scattered all over the world whom she has never met and likely never will. Her family has forever been torn apart.
“For sure I can say that complete healing can not happen. [My grandparents] still have not fully recovered from everything that happened to their parents. Even all of the Armenians today in the diaspora, they are not healed. They left their homes and became immigrants in foreign countries and saw different lives. Armenian families are not completely together,” Hunanyan said.
For Hunanyan, speaking of her family’s survival, and remembering others in her country who lost their lives, means that their memory won’t ever be forgotten. Recognizing the generational impact of the genocide is something she hopes everyone can realize.
“My grandfather and his children were affected psychologically and financially by the genocide. They lived in fear after the genocide and they had to work really hard to be able to live a good life,” she said.
President Joe Biden’s recognition of the Armenian Genocide on April 24, 2021 took Armenians one step forward to justice, as real change stems from acknowledging the past. But there is still much work to be done. Armenians hope that one day Turkey will recognize the role their ancestors played during the Armenian Genocide.
Although the recognition by the United States set an important example for other countries to follow, Armenians will never get real justice until their perpetrators choose to make peace with them. The 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war is proof that history will repeat itself if change is not made.
“Hopefully one day [Turkey] will recognize the Armenian Genocide,” Hunanyan said. “For me that will mean that there is still justice in this world. That the guilty will be punished and that one day we will be able to see our old land. I feel like our generation will live to see that day.”
The war in Nagorno-Karabakh, which began a year ago, came as a surprise to civilians who had to leave their homes, said residents of Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, interviewed by the “Caucasian Knot”.
The “Caucasian Knot” has reported that today marks one year since the start of the Karabakh war in 2020.
The full-scale combat actions took place in Nagorno-Karabakh in the period from September 27 to November 9, 2020. The “Caucasian Knot” has released a map marking the deployment of peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh. Another map prepared by the “Caucasian Knot” indicates what territories Azerbaijan got after the autumn war.
Nver Vardanyan, a resident of Stepanakert, told the “Caucasian Knot” correspondent that he lived in Gadrut before the war, and when the mobilization was announced, he went to the war as a reservist. At the front, the man was wounded and was in a hospital when the city of Gadrut was captured by the Azerbaijani armed forces.
According to Nver Vardanyan, his elderly parents stayed in Gadrut. “I was in the hospital, as I was severely wounded. Later, I was told that my parents and their neighbours could not leave the city in due time. My parents, Serzhik and Ella Vardanyan, were shot dead by Azerbaijanis near the houses,” Nver Vardanyan said.
Now, Never Vardanyan lives with his family members in Stepanakert, where he rents a room in a private house.
Raisa Madatyan, a mother of many children, a native of the city of Shushi (the Azerbaijani name is Shusha, – note of the “Caucasian Knot”). During a bombing of the city, her house was damaged, and the family was evacuated to Armenia. The woman said that from the first day of the war, her husband volunteered for the front and was killed in the war.
“My husband was killed. I lost the house and property, and we have to rent an apartment in Stepanakert. The war took everything from us. Earlier, I could not imagine that our happy family life would end so abruptly,” the woman told the “Caucasian Knot” correspondent.
Farmer Movlud Abbasov from the Ilisu village in the Gakh District of Azerbaijan lost his middle son Nidjat in the war. “After we had got a list reporting the death of Nidjat, his grandfather did not live even a month. This is how our family lost two close people in the war,” Movlud Abbasov said.
As a result of the 2020 war, more than 36,000 residents of Nagorno-Karabakh had to leave their permanent places of residence and become forced migrants, the “Caucasian Knot” was informed by an employee of the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Infrastructures of Nagorno-Karabakh.
According to the Ministry of Defence (MoD) of Azerbaijan, as of June 30, 2906 Azerbaijani soldiers and officers were killed during the war in the autumn of 2020. Eight other soldiers were reported missing. According to the General Prosecutor’s Office of Azerbaijan, at least 93 civilians were killed and 404 others were injured.
On the part of Armenia, 3781 people were killed in the Karabakh war, and other 253 are missing, the Investigating Committee of Armenia reports today. Meanwhile, on July 7, Ombudsperson of Nagorno-Karabakh Gegam Stepanyan reported that during the autumn war of 2020, 750 citizens of Nagorno-Karabakh, including 669 soldiers and officers, were killed.
This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on September 27, 2021 at 12:14 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.
Author: Alvard Grigoryan, Armine Martirosyan, Faik Medzhid; Source: CK correspondents
Source:
© Caucasian Knot
St. Gregory of Armenia is one of the most unusual of all Eastern Bishops. The King was the son of man that St. Gregory’s father had been accused of killing. Gregory was condemned to the pit in 287 AD by King Trdat and the persecution of Christians began. After the martyrdom of a group of nuns who came to Armenia from Rome led by Hripsime and Gayane, Trdat was stricken with strange maladies. His sister, Khosrovidukht, had a dream that Gregory was the only person who could heal her brother. Miraculously, Gregory was still alive after many years in the pit, thanks to the daily visits of an angel. Gregory emerged from the pit; the king was healed and baptized, and he declared Christianity to be the official religion of Armenia.
Pope Leo XIII, ATERNA CARITAS, ENCYCLICAL OF POPE LEO XIII ON REUNION WITH ROME July 25, 1888
Now for the accomplishment of this conversion it is necessary for you, Venerable Brethren, who rule the Armenian dioceses, and who, We know, will never be wanting in zealous exhortation or persuasive teaching, to give all your efforts. Moreover, We are anxious that they, who do not acknowledge Us, should be called back through you, in Our name and by Our words; for it is no shame – nay, it is praiseworthy in the highest degree – that a father should himself call his wandering and long expected children home – should even go forth with open arms to receive and welcome them. Nor do We think it possible for your words and arguments to fall on barren soil, for the great mercy of God which He has shown to the nations, supported by the humble – mindedness and docility of the Armenian people give Us hope for a favourable result. The testimony of history is full of manifold examples of their readiness to embrace truth once recognized, and their eagerness to retrace their steps if they see that they have fallen away from the right path. Nay, even these very men who fulfil the duties of religion in schism from you, boast that the Armenians were taught the faith of Christ by Gregory, a man of eminent holiness, who earned the surname of “the Enlightener,” and they honour him as their father and patron with displays of much reverence and devotion. It is moreover recorded amongst them that this man undertook a journey to the City of Rome, to lay his faith and his obedience at the feet of the Roman Pontiff, St. Sylvester, who, it is said, received him with much affection and conferred upon him several privileges. We know, moreover, that many of those who afterwards ruled the Armenian Churches followed in the footsteps of Gregory – from their letters, their pilgrimages to Rome, and especially from their Synodal Decrees. Particularly memorable are the Decrees of the Armenian Fathers in the Synod of Sizeboli, held in the year 1307, on the duty of obedience to this Apostolic See: “As the body must obey the head, so the Universal Church (which is the body of Christ) should obey him who has been appointed by Christ the Lord, head of the whole Church.” and explained more clearly in the Council of Adano in the 16th year of the same century. You are well aware also – to speak of less important embassies – what took place in the Synod of Florence; for when the Legates of the Patriarch Constantine V arrived there, they said that they had come to the head, to the shepherd, to the corner-stone of the Church, entreating Eugene IV, Our predecessor in the Vicariate of the Lord Christ, as head to sympathise with the members, as shepherd to gather together the flock, as corner-stone to strengthen the Church;(2) and bringing forth the symbol of their faith they asked, “If aught is wanting, instruct us.” Then the Constitution of the Council, Exultate Deo, was published by the pope, in which he taught them all that he considered to be necessary for the right knowledge of Catholic truth; and upon this, the Legates, in the name of their Patriarch, and of the whole Armenian race, declared that they received the Constitution in entire submission and readiness to obey, “promising in the same name, as true sons of obedience, loyally to obey the behests and commands of the Apostolic See.” On this account Azarias, Patriarch of Cilicia, wrote most truly in letters addressed to Our predecessor, Gregory XIII, dated April 10th 1585; “Behold we have found the Decrees of our predecessors on the obedience of Catholics and our Patriarchs to the Roman Pontiff, and on the submission of St. Gregory ‘the Enlightener’ to Pope St. Sylvester.” Hence it has ever been the custom of the Armenian race to receive with honour Legates sent on any mission from the Apostolic See, and to carry out the commands of that See with religious care.
APOSTOLIC LETTER OF JOHN PAUL II FOR THE 1,700th ANNIVERSARY OF THE BAPTISM OF THE ARMENIAN PEOPLE Feb. 2, 2001
Seventeen centuries ago, dear brothers and sisters of the Armenian people, this shared conversion to Christ took place for you. It is an event that has deeply marked your identity, not only personally but as a community, so that we are entitled to speak of the “Baptism” of your nation, even though Christianity actually reached your land much earlier. Tradition attributes its origins to the preaching and work of the holy Apostles Thaddeus and Bartholomew.
With the “Baptism” of the Armenian community, first received by the civil and military authorities, the people acquired a new identity that was to become a constitutive and inseparable part of Armenian life. It would no longer be possible to think that faith did not figure as an essential element among the components of this identity. For Armenian culture itself would receive an extraordinarily powerful impetus from the proclamation of the Gospel: its Armenian aspect would give a profoundly characteristic note to this proclamation, which would eventually be a driving force for an unprecedented development of the national culture. The invention of the Armenian alphabet, a decisive factor for the stability and definition of the people’s cultural identity, would be closely associated with the Baptism of Armenia, and would be desired and conceived as a true and proper vehicle of evangelization, even more than as a way to communicate concepts and information. The new alphabet, the work of St Mesrop-Masthoc”, in collaboration with the holy Catholicos Sahak, would enable Armenians to receive the best features of Syrian and Greek spirituality, theology and culture, and blend them all in an original way with the specific contribution of their own genius.
3. The conversion of Armenia, which occurred at the dawn of the fourth century and is traditionally dated to the year 301, made your ancestors realize that they were the first officially Christian people, well before Christianity was recognized as the religion of the Roman Empire.
In particular, it was the historian Agathangelos who, in a tale full of symbolism, recounted in detail the events that tradition says gave rise to this mass conversion of your people. The story begins with the providential and dramatic meeting of the two heroes on whom the story is based: Gregory, the son of the Parthian Anak, raised at Caesarea in Cappadocia, and the Armenian king, Tiridates III. It started, in fact, with a dispute: Gregory, asked by the king to make a sacrifice to the goddess Anahit, adamantly refused, explaining to the sovereign that there is only one Creator of heaven and earth, the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. When he was therefore subjected to cruel torments, Gregory, aided by God’s power, was unbending. Seeing his steadfast constancy in professing the Christian faith, the king had him thrown into a deep pit, a dark, narrow place infested with snakes, where previously no one had ever survived. But Gregory lived for many years in that pit without succumbing, fed by Providence through the compassionate hand of a widow.
The tale continues, mentioning the attempts made in the meantime by the Roman Emperor Diocletian to seduce the holy virgin Hrip”sime, who, to escape this peril, fled from Rome with a group of companions to seek refuge in Armenia. The young girl’s beauty attracted the attention of King Tiridates, who fell in love with her and wanted to make her his own. In the face of Hrip”sime’s obstinate refusal, the king was enraged and had her and her companions cruelly tortured and killed. According to tradition, Tiridates was turned into a wild boar as a punishment for his crime and could not return to human form until, in obedience to a message from heaven, he released Gregory from the pit in which he had lived for 13 long years. Having obtained through the saint’s prayers the miracle of being restored to human form, Tiridates realized that Gregory’s God was the true one and decided to convert, along with his family and army, and to work for the evangelization of the whole country. This is how the Armenians came to be baptized and how Christianity was imposed as the nation’s official religion. In the meantime Gregory had received episcopal ordination in Caesarea and traveled all over the land with Tiridates, destroying places of idolatrous worship and building Christian churches.
No matter what you think about St. Gregory, he is the only Eastern Bishop that has his statue in the Vatican. He is one of the few Eastern Bishops who is recognized as a Saint in both the Eastern and Western Churches. He is truly a man for all seasons and more importantly to me, he I am very proud to call him one of my direct line grandfathers. Praise Be To God Always. Amen, Comment below.