JOURNAL 



OF 



THE ASIATIC SOCIETY. 



No. 51.— Marck 1836. 



I. — Memoir of the Life and Writings of St. Nierses Clajensis, sur- 

 named the Graceful, Pontiff of Armenia. By Johannes Avdall. 



[Submitted to the Asiatic Society, 1st May, 1829*.] 

 At a period when Armenia was labouring under the lamentable 

 effects of intestine broils and foreign invasions ; when she was subject- 

 ed to the ruinous consequences of dissensions that existed between the 

 leaders of the Armenian and Greek Churches, when tyranny and per- 

 secution of the most violent kind strode hand in hand in her territories, 

 Providence deemed it necessary, out of sympathy for the sufferings of 

 human beings, to raise up a person, who, by a happy combination of the 

 qualities of a great mind, with those of a good heart, might be a proper 

 instrument of knitting more closely man to man, and of removing dis- 

 turbances from the Church of Christ, whose very essence is formed of 

 love, meekness, and peace. 



The individual, in whom the illustrious subject of this Memoir found 

 a father, was called Apira.t, a prince famed for uncommon bravery 

 and glorious achievements, who nourished in Armenia near the close of 

 the eleventh century. He claimed his origin from the Pehlavic race, 

 and had the happiness of perpetuating his memory by giving birth to 

 four sons, known under the appellations of Basil, Shahan,. Gregory, 



* This paper was handed to us by a Member of the Committee of Papers of 

 the Asiatic Society for 1829, on his departure for the Cape. It had been unfortu- 

 nately mislaid among his papers. Although, (as the author's presentation letter 

 says,) " it is not of a scientific nature, and consequently little adapted to the 

 taste of the present age," still, considering that it is descriptive of the public 

 acts of the greatest author and divine that flourished in Asia in the middle 

 of the 12th century, and illustrative of the religious differences that separate 

 the Church of Armenia from that of Greece, it cannot fail to interest many of 

 our readers. — Ed. 



