GREGORY THE ILLUMINATOR the reputed founder of the Armenian Church, was according to legend, the son of Anak, head of the Parthian clan of Suren, who was bribed by the Sassanid king of Persia to assassinate the Armenian king, Chosroes. Anak was slain by his victim's soldiers; Gregory was rescued by his Christian nurse, carried to Caesarea in Cappadocia, and brought up a Christian. When he refused to assist Tiridates, now king of Armenia, in offering pagan sacri fice, and his parentage became revealed, he was confined to a pit at Artashat for fourteen years. About 301 Tiridates killed the nun Ripsime, who had sought his protection against Diocle tian. Providence, incensed at such cruelty, turned Tiridates into a wild boar and afflicted his subjects with madness; but his sister had a revelation to bring Gregory out of his pit. The king consented, the saint was permitted to preach, and after his vision of Christ at Valarshapat, Christianity became the na tional faith of Armenia. About 290 Gregory went to Caesarea, where Leontius ordained and consecrated him vicar-general of Armenia. This ordination is historical, though the vision at Valarshapat was invented later by the Armenians when they broke with the Greeks, in order to give to their church the semblance, if not of apostolic, at least of divine origin.
About 315, Tiridates went with Gregory, Aristaces, son of Gregory, and Albianos, head of the other priestly family, either to Rome or to Sardica, to make a pact with Constantine, newly converted to the faith. In 325 he sent Aristaces to the Council of Nice, and Gregory is related to have added a clause to the creed which Aristaces brought back. About 332, Gregory be came a hermit on Mount Sebuh where he died.
Gregory did not really convert Great Armenia, for it had been already converted by Syrian missionaries to the Adoptionist or Ebionite faith which was dominant in the far East, and was afterwards known as Nestorianism. Marcionites and Montanists had also worked in the field. Gregory persuaded Tiridates to destroy the last relics of paganism, and carried out in the re ligious sphere his sovereign's policy of detaching Great Armenia from the Sassanid realm and allying it with the Graeco-Roman empire and civilization. He set himself to Hellenize or Catholi cize Armenian Christianity, and in furtherance of this aim set up a hierarchy dependent on the Cappadocian.
Life of Gregory, which is highly embellished with miraculous stories, was compiled about 45o. It was published in Armenian by the Mechitarists at in 1835, and in Greek by Lagarde in 1889. See also S. Weber, Die Catholische Kirche in Armenien (Freiburg, 1903, with bibliography) ; C. Fortescue, The Armenian Church (1872) ; H. Gelzer, Die An f tinge der armenischen Kirche (Leipzig, 1895) (Sachs. Gesells. der Wissensch.) ; v. Gutschmid, Kleine Schriften (Leipzig, 1892) ; Arshak Ter Mikelian, Die arm. Kirche (Leipzig, 1892) ; Malan, S. Gregory the Illuminator (Riving tons, 1868) .