Mechitar
Mechitar
(MECHITHAR, MEKHITAR, MCHITAR or MOCHTOR, a word which means “Comforter”)
Mechitar is the name taken by Peter Manuk, founder of the religious order of Mechitarists, when he became a monk. A native of Sebaste (Sivas) in Lesser Armenia, born 7 February, 1676, of parents reputed noble, he was left until the age of fifteen in the care of two pious nuns. Then he entered the cloister of the Holy Cross near Sebaste, and the same year (1691), was ordained deacon by Bishop Ananias. Shortly afterwards, impelled by his thirst for knowledge, he left the cloister—not putting off the habit or infringing his vows (the Eastern monk could, for a proper reason, lawfully leave the enclosure) and set forth, in the company of a doctor of that city, for Etchmiadzin, the capital of Greater Armenia, persuaded that it was the centre of civilization and the home of all the sciences. During the journey he met with a European missionary and a fellow Armenian, whose accounts of the wonders of the West changed the course of his life. Stirred with an admiration of Western culture and the desire to introduce it among his countrymen, he wandered from place to place, earning a scanty living by teaching. After eighteen months he returned to Sebaste where he remained for some time, still ambitious to study Western civilization. Even then he had conceived the idea of founding a religious society—suggested, doubtless, by the well-intentioned but long since suppressed association of the “United Brothers”—which would labour to introduce Western ideas and Western influence into Armenia. This would imply a formal reunion of the Armenian Church with Rome, and there would be an end of that wavering between Constantinople and Rome, so injurious to the spiritual and intellectual welfare of his country. At Sebaste, he devoted himself to the reading of the Armenian sacred writers and the Syrian and Greek Fathers in translations, and, after a vain attempt to reach Europe from Alexandria, he was ordained priest (1696) in his own city, and (1699) received the title and staff of doctor (Vartabed) . Then he began to preach, and went to Constantinople with the intention of founding an Armenian College. He continued his preaching there, generally in the church of St. George, gathered some disciples around him, and distinguished himself by his advocacy of union with the Holy See. Serious trouble ensued with a violent persecution of the Catholics by the Turks excited by the action of Count Ferrol, minister of Louis XIV at Stamboul, who carried off to Paris the anti-Catholic Patriarch of Constantinople. Naturally, the fervour of Mechitar and his disciples in the Catholic cause, and the success of their preaching singled them out for special attention. The two patriarchs, urged by a schismatic, Avedik, led the attack. Mechitar wisely dismissed his disciples and himself took refuge in a Capuchin convent under French protection. Pursued by his enemies, he escaped to the Morea, thence to Venetian territory, finding shelter in a Jesuit house. He attributed his safety to our Blessed Lady, under whose protection, on 8 Sept., the Feast of her Nativity, he had solemnly placed himself and his society.
The Venetians kindly gave him some property at Modon (1701), where he built a church and convent, and laid the foundations of the Mechitarist Order. Clement XI gave it formal approval in 1712, and appointed Mechitar Abbot. Three years later war broke out between Venice and the Porte, and the new abbey was in jeopardy. The abbot, leaving seventy of his monks behind, crossed over to Venice with sixteen companions with the intention of beginning a second foundation. It was well that he did so for the Venetians were defeated and the Morea was regained by the Turks. Modon was taken, the monastery destroyed and the monks dispersed. The house rented at Venice proved too small and Mechitar exerted all his influence to obtain the gift of San Lazzaro, an island about two miles south-east of the city, not far from the Lido. His request granted, he restored the old ruined church, and a second time built a monastery for his monks. This establishment has remained undisturbed in the hands of the Mechitarists to the present day. At S. Lazzaro he devised many schemes for the regeneration of his country. An accusation brought against him at Rome—not a personal charge but one connected with the labours undertaken by the order—resulted in a better understanding with the Holy See, and the personal friendship of the pope. He lived at S. Lazzaro for thirty years, busy with his printing-press and his literary labours, and died at the age of seventy-four, on 16 April, 1749. Since his death he is always spoken of by his children as the Abbas Pater, Abbai hairm (see MECHITARISTS).
The most important of his literary works are the following: “Commentary on the Gospel of St. Matthew” (1737); “Commentary on Ecclesiasticus” (Venice); “Armenian Grammar”; “Armenian Grammar of the Vulgar Tongue”; “Armenian Dictionary” (1744, and in two volumes, Venice, 1749-69); “Armenian Catechism”, both in the literary and vulgar tongues; “A Poem on the Blessed Virgin”; “Armenian Bible” (1734).
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Vita dell’ abbate Mechitar (Venice, 1810); La vie du serviteur de Dieu Mechitar, fondateur de l’ordre des moines arméniens Mechitaristes de Venise, ainsi que La vie des abbés généraux et des moines les plus célèbres de la congrégation (Venice, 1901).
J.C. ALMOND. Transcribed by Douglas J. Potter Dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XCopyright © 1911 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, October 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Mechitar
(or Mekhitar), DA PETRO, the founder of the Order of Mechitarists (q.v.), was born at Sebaste, a town of Armenia Minor, Feb. 7, 1676. His father’s name was Peter Mauukean (i.e. son of Manug), but he exchanged his family name (Manug) for that of Mechitar, or Consoler, on entering into ecclesiastical orders. His early education had been intrusted to monastics; they, no doubt, influenced him to devote himself to the service of the Church. At the age of fifteen he became an inmate of the Convent of the Holy Cross, near Sebaste; and a few years after, being made secretary of the archbishop Michael, who took him to Erzerum, he became acquainted with a fellow-countryman who had travelled in Europe, and wholenthim an Armenian work by Galanus, an Italian missionary, On the Reconciliation of the Armenian Church with that of Rome (published at Rome in 1650). Though Mechitar still continued professedly a member of the Armenian priesthood, he appears from this time to have become in secret a proselyte to the Church of Rome but the exact date of his passing over seems to have been unknown to all his biographers. He was anxious to make himself acquainted with the civilization of the West, it is urged by some; others believe that Mechitar had fallen into the hands of Romish priests, and was induced, as early as 1693, to accept the Romish interpretation of the sacred writings, and, consequently, of the doctrines and faith of the hierarchy, and that he determined on a visit to Rome to enjoy an interview with the holy father and the great dignitaries of the Latin Church. There is some reason also for the belief that Mechitar was at once, after his entry into the Latin Church, made a member of the Society of Jesus, and that he secretly worked for the good of the order. On his way to Rome he was attacked by severe illness in the island of Cyprus, and compelled to return, begging his way as he went. In 1696 he reentered the convent, determined to become a worker for higher religious and literary culture among his countrymen, and to further this undertaking effectually he sought to gather about him young men desiring to work as missionaries. In 1699 he was made DD., and shortly after he removed to the Byzantine capital. In 1700, when he was a preacher at Constantinople, some dissensions between the partisans of two rival patriarchs divided the Armenian community into two hostile parties. Mechitar at first advised reconciliation, and afterwards, to their surprise, preached submission to the Church of Rome, and this roused such a storm against him that he was obliged to claim the protection of the French ambassador, which was readily afforded.
Thenceforth Mechitar appeared openly as a Roman Catholic. To escape from the animosity of his country. men he still found it necessary to remove in disguise to Smyrna, and finally he settled at Modon, in theMorea under the protection of the Venetian government, to whom it then belonged. As early as Sept. 8, 1701, he had founded at Constantinople a new religious community, in which ten other persons joined with him; at Modon, on Sept. 8, 1703, he took possession of an estate given him by the Venetians, to build a convent of the new order, which was called after his own name. The war between the Turks and the Venetians drove Mechitar in 1715 to Venice, where he remained until after the conquest of the Morea by the Mussulman. His petition for a place instead of Modon found a willing ear at the Venetian Senate in 1717, and he was presented with the little island of San Lazaro, near the Lido, and there Mechitar built the convent which still attracts the attention of every visitor to Venice. It was opened on the day of the Virgin Mary’s birth, Sept. 8. Thenceforth Mechitar labored assiduously for the good of the Church of Rome and the elevation of his countrymen. He is acknowledged even by his opponents of the Armenian Church to have revived the high literary attainments of his country in former days. He not only contributed to this by his own efforts as a voluminous writer, but in a still more important degree by establishing printing presses. He died April 27, 1749. His own productions are, besides many hymns, which are still sung in the Armenian churches, because they were written before his apostasy, a translation of Thomas B Kempis’s Imitation of Christ, and of Thomas Aquinas’s Theology, and many philological works of value. The fullest account of Mechitar, of his work, and of his followers, in English, is to be found in Brief Account of the Mechitaristican Society,:by Alexander Gorde (Venice, 1835). SEE MECHITARISTS.