Although an Armenian printing press was functioning in the Ottoman Empire at the end of the sixteenth century, the two centuries of warfare and the treatment of the Armenians by local lords in eastern Anatolia had resulted in a backward society. Only a few books, all on religion, were published. The earliest concrete evidence of renewed Armenian cultural activity began in the late seventeenth century. The most important Armenian intellectual of the period was Yeremia Chelebi Kemurjian (1637- 1695), who established a new printing press in 1677 to counter the preaching of Jesuit missionaries. The Armenian Church continued to resist change, however, which fostered dissatisfaction among progressive elements and which, indirectly, led to the establishment of the Mekhitarian or Mekhitarist order.
This Catholic monastic order was founded by Abbot Mekhitar, who was born in Sebastia (Sivas) in 1676. After joining the Armenian Apostolic priesthood, he traveled in western Armenia and was convinced that Armenian education had reached a low ebb in his homeland. He sought to establish a religious order which would fulfill the spiritual and intellectual needs of his countrymen. He was rebuked by the Armenian clergy and, after meeting a number of Latin missionaries, felt that the Western Church possessed the necessary tools for his mission. After converting to Catholicism in Aleppo in 1695, Mekhitar founded a new order in Constantinople with ten members on September 8, 1701. Mekhitar maintained that it was possible to adhere to papal authority and to remain faithful to the Armenian nation. His activities not only angered the Armenian patriarchate but were unfavorably viewed by the Latin missionaries, none of whom could accept his dual loyalty. The Mekhitarians were forced to leave for the Morea, in Greece, which at that time was under the control of Venice.
In 1705 the Mekhitarians petitioned Pope Clement XI (1700-1721) to recognize their Order. The Vatican, concerned by the rumors circulated by Catholic missionaries trained by the Propaganda fide, who accused Mekhitar of tampering with the rites of the Catholic Church, delayed its recognition until 1712. In 1715 the Ottomans took the Morea, destroyed the Mekhitarian monastery, and forced the priests to leave for Venice. The Venetian senate voted to grant the Order the island of San Lazzaro, a former leper refuge, and on September 8, 1717, sixteen years to the day after the founding of the Order, the Mekhitarians moved there. In 1718 Mekhitar traveled to Rome to defend his Order against continuing rumors. He was successful in convincing the Vatican of his orthodoxy and devoted the rest of his life to religious and intellectual activities. He died at San Lazzaro on April 27, 1749. In 1773 a number of disaffected Mekhitarian fathers left Venice and eventually established a separate branch of the order in 1803 in Trieste. Following Napoleon’s invasion of Italy, they fled to Vienna, where they established a new center in 1811. Both the Venetian and Viennese Mekhitarian congregations are active to this day.
The Mekhitarians were deeply concerned with preserving Armenian culture, as well as with the revival of the study of Armenian history and language. They were able to do more to achieve this end than any other Armenian institution. They translated European classics into Armenian and began writing historical, linguistic, literary, and religious works using primary sources in Latin, Greek, and other languages. The efforts of M. Chamchian (1738-1823), G. Avetikian (1751-1827), A. Bagratuni (1790-1866), A. Aytenian (1824-1902), P. Minasian (1799-1866) and Gh. Alishan (1820-1901) produced grammars, dictionaries, histories, plays, and numerous philological, geographical and theological works. With financial assistance from Iranian-Armenian and especially Indian-Armenian merchants, the Mekhitarians established schools and produced two periodicals, Bazmavep, printed in Venice from 1843 onward, and Handes Amsorya, printed in Vienna beginning in 1887. The Venetian congregation concentrated its efforts on Armenian history and literature, while the priests in Vienna focused theirs on Armenian language and philology. The Mekhitarians not only enabled Europe to learn about the Armenian past, but their labors channeled Western thought to the Armenians in the Ottoman and Russian empires and played a major role in shaping the Armenian cultural revival of the nineteenth century.
Excerpted from A History of the Armenian People, Vol.ll 1500 A.D. to the Present by George A. Bournoutian.
