GREGORY OF ARMENIA, called THE IL LUMINATOR (c.257-332). The apostle of Chris tianity among the Armenians. Little is known of his early history, and the facts of his life are so mingled with fiction that it is difficult to separate them. He is said to have been born at Valarshabad, the capital of the Province of Ararat, Armenia, about 257, and educated at cmsarea in Cappadocia, where at the same time he was instructed in the Christian religion. He afterwards entered into the service of Tiridates III., King of Armenia, by whom he was sub jected to severe persecution on account of his refusal to worship idols. Some severe public calamity which succeeded being looked upon as a proof of Divine wrath, and the King being him self afflicted, both the ruler and his subjects put themselves under Gregory's instruction. The people were converted in great numbers, and churches immediately erected throughout the country; and Gregory. after receiving ordination
at Ca-sarea (302), returned as Metropolitan of Armenia, and baptized his converts. He is said to have retired from office in 331 to live in a cave, and to have died there in 332. The memory of Gregory is held in great reverence in the Greek, Coptic, Abyssinian, and Armenian church es, and he is one of the saints of the Roman Catholic calendar. The discourses attributed to him are probably spurious. There are two lives in Armenian accessible, one in a French transla tion by Langlois in vol. i. of his Historiens de PArmenie (Paris, 1867) ; and the other in the English translation by Malan, Life and Times of Saint Gregory the Illuminator (London, 1868) ; other lives and his works are in Migne, Patrol. Grwca, cxvii.