On This Day: The Armenian Church Synaxarion-January, ed. by Edward G. Mathews Jr. Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 2014.
On This Day: The Armenian Church Synaxarion-February, ed. by Edward G. Mathews Jr. Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 2015.
The Armenian Synaxarion is part of the Eastern Christian Texts series, one subdivision of the Middle Eastern Texts Initiative of the Maxwell Institute at BYU. This project “bring[s] back into circulation writings that are properly the intellectual heritage of all people. … We present each text in its original language and script, carefully edited together with an expert English translation running parallel to the text. Scholarly annotations, indexes, glossaries, and bibliographies provide further aids to the reader.” These are the first two of a planned 12-volume series of the Armenian Synaxarion – a book of the saints venerated day by day in the Armenian tradition.
See, for example, the account of “The life of the blessed John the voluntary poor man,” on January 15:
This John was the son of a wealthy prince at Constantinople whose name was Eutropius, and he was much loved by his parents. When he was a young man and was learning to read, he asked his parents for a Gospel-book ((A “Gospel-book” is more than it might appear to 21st century Mormons at first glance: Containing at least one and usually all four of the New Testament gospels – but not the rest of the Bible – a Gospel-book plays a special role in liturgy and worship. It is held aloft to bless the congregation during worship; it rests open on the bowed head of a man being consecrated as priest or bishop; it is carried in procession at set times during the liturgical year. Gospel-books are bound in precious metals or cloth but never in leather, because Christ’s words give life and leather is dead, as well as recalling God’s clothing newly-fallen Man in animal skins.)) . They made for him a small Gospel-book and embellished the cover with gold, gems, and pearls. He kept it constantly at hand and was [always] reading from it.
One day, he saw a certain monk from the monastery of the Akoimetoi who was going to Jerusalem to pray, and John inquired from him about the regulations and practices of the monastery. They swore an oath with each other that, upon [the monk’s] return, he would bring John to his monastery.
When that monk returned, John saw him and was very glad; and he went to his parents and asked them for some money that he might make a meal for his classmates. He took it and went to the monk. He gave the money as fare to the ship’s captain, and they went off to his monastery.
The abbot of the monastery shaved John’s head and clothed him in the holy habit. John practiced such an ascetical life that the other monks would say that he was one of the incorporeal angels. he was twelve years old when he went to the monastery, and he toiled there for six years.
Satan became envious and cast into his heart a desire for his parents. He became extremely emaciated, both from his asceticism and from that desire. The abbot of the monastery and the other monks became fearful and said to John, “Do not afflict yourself so much, for God does not require from man more than his measure.” He revealed to them the artifices of Satan. And they commanded that he go and see his parents; and, after having prayed, they set John on his way.
On his way to his parents’ house, John exchanged his clothing with a poor man dressed in old and worn-out rags. His parents did not recognize him when he arrived at their door, of course, and he did not identify himself. They took pity on what they thought was a beggar, and allowed their gatekeeper to build John a reed hut near their gate, and they sent food to him, which he gave away to people poorer than he was.
He became an unpleasant neighbor, though, due to the stench of his sores, and his mother ordered the gatekeeper to move the poor man away from their gate. John begged the gatekeeper to let him stay, and asked that the gatekeeper move him away from the gate whenever the lady went in or out, and let him stay in his hut otherwise.
He always had his Gospel-book with him. And when he perceived that his end was approaching, he summoned the gatekeeper, gave him a great blessing, and said, “Go, tell your mistress that the poor man who lives in front of your gate is about to die and he wishes that you condescend to come and see him; there is something that he would like to say to you.” But she refused, due to the foul stench. Her husband said, “Go, see him, and speak with him, ‘for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven’ (Matthew 19:14). Perhaps we too will find mercy because of him.” So she wrapped up her face and went to the hut. John gave both his father and his mother a great blessing and, pulling out his Gospel-book, he gave it to his mother and said, “May this be for your salvation and your reward, for it was at your gate that I went to my rest.”
His mother recognized the book but did not recognize John, and begged him to tell her how the book had come to him. He told her to summon her husband, and made them swear that they would grant him what he was about to ask of them.
And he said, “In this place you shall bury me, in this hair-shirt. I am your son John.” And at that moment, he committed his soul to God.
The mother wept and mourned, and immediately forgot her oath, clothing her son in fine, embroidered clothing. But as she was doing so, her hand miraculously withered.
She then remembered her oath, removed those garments in which she had just clothed him, and put his shabby hair-shirt back upon him. Then her hands were restored, and they buried him in that place on January 15. They built a chapel over him. Then his parents also adopted the monastic life and, with great asceticism, they became the servants of those holy relics; and they too fell asleep after a good life.
A story like that is so alien to Latter-day Saints: While we believe that living a modest life is better than a life of conspicuous consumption – in large part because living modestly allows us to share with others to build a Zion society – we don’t believe there is virtue in denying the legitimate needs of the physical body: food, cleanliness, shelter, clothing, medical care, all things “the blessed John the voluntary poor man” denied himself as a matter of piety. The human body, this physical world, are gifts from God, which we will lose at death but which we will regain in a better form for all eternity. Family relationships are, to say the least, significant – John’s mother, who ministered to John once she recognized him, is far easier to understand than John himself, who concealed his identity for so long.
But while our standards for selecting virtuous persons of the past to honor are different, there are ways in which I find it quite easy to understand why the Armenian faithful came to create and preserve records like those in the Synaxarion:
Like the Orthodox, Latter-day Saints find value in remembering the lives of past members of our faith: They are our models for what it means to live the faith, to endure in the face of hardship, to honor those who went before.
Armenians have survived centuries of oppression, exile, even genocide, far beyond the persecution of a few decades endured by the Latter-day Saints. It is a matter of degree, not kind, and we have a measure of empathy for the martyrdom of some of those memorialized in archives like this one.
Both our peoples recognize that the world we perceive with our physical senses is not the whole of existence: There is a world beyond this one, beyond time and space, which will be our ultimate home. How we live here, and whether we grow too fond of this world or “lay up treasure” elsewhere, governs our place in that eternal home.
The novelist William Saroyan famously said, “Go ahead, destroy Armenia. See if you can do it. Send them into the desert without bread or water. Burn their homes and churches. Then see if they will not laugh, sing and pray again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a New Armenia.” Mormons, too, famously meet as strangers, then explore common ties of missionaries they have known, wards they have lived in, schools they have attended, or vast networks of kin known sometimes from family reunions and sometimes only through genealogical charts. It is those links forged in the past through shared experiences or shared heritage – the memories that reside in a Synaxarion or a mission reunion – that bind both Armenian and Latter-day Saints almost as tribes.
These two volumes are beautifully produced, with clear type (both English and Armenian – I have begun to teach myself the basics of Armenian, and the type used here makes it easy for me to exercise what I’ve learned) and uncrowded page designs. The notes – footnotes! not endnotes! – are brief and few, but helpful; they chiefly pin each account to a specific time and sometimes place, and there are citations to Biblical (including Apocryphal) verses alluded to in the stories. There are no pedantic discursions exploring history or debating doctrine or translation issues; a few notes point briefly to additional published sources. A bibliography and indexes of scripture citations and names appear in each volume.