Christian Armenia

Armenia has long held a special place in my heart not merely because her history is so gripping and so grief-stricken, with millions of Armenian Christians slaughtered by Muslims from the seventh century through to the 1915 Genocide. Armenian Orthodoxy is fascinating because it develops in its own unique way quite distinct from either the East- or West-Romans, from whom nonetheless certain borrowings are made. Additionally, as an ecclesiologist, I am utterly fascinated by the structure of the Armenian Church, which is singular in the entire world, having two patriarchs within a catholicosate, and two catholicosates within one Church. No other church in the world has anything even close, managing only one patriarch at most. The multi-layered Armenian structures are a function of her complicated history and peregrinations over Asia Minor as a result of persecution.

Today Ashgate Press, which is an excellent academic publisher, informs me of a new work that Logos: A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies will review next year:

Nina Garsoian, Studies on the Formation of Christian Armenia (Ashgate, 2010), 310pp.

Further details here: http://www.ashgate.com/isbn/9781409403661