The
Armenian Church had two Catholicoi called Mateos in the nineteenth and
twentieth century, who also were Patriarchs of Constantinople at first,
and lived and worked in difficult circumstances both in the Ottoman and
the Russian empires.
Mateos
Chuhadjian was born in Constantinople in 1802 and consecrated
archimandrite in 1826. He was one of the best prepared and well-versed
ecclesiastics of his time. Following instructions of Patriarch Stepanos
Aghavni (1831-1839 and 1840-1841), he collaborated with writer Krikor
Peshdimaljian and published a voluminous
Synaxarion
in 1831. (The
Synaxarion--
in Armenian,
Haysmavurk
--is
the compilation of the lives of saints arranged by the order of their
anniversaries.) During his life, he would publish a dozen works of
religious studies and theology, some of them polemical.
He
was named primate of the diocese of Brusa in 1835 and consecrated
bishop three years later. In 1841 he became primate of Smyrna and in
July 1844, at the age of forty-two, he became Patriarch of
Constantinople.
The
relations between the Catholicosate of All Armenians and the
Patriarchate had become frozen in 1828, when the dioceses under
jurisdiction of the latter had stopped remembering the name of the
Catholicos. In his first Holy Mass, celebrated on July 23, 1844, he
remembered the name of Catholics Nerses V Ashtaraketsi. Patriarch Mateos
worked towards restoring the relations between both sees. By mutual
agreement, the two sees decided to maintain direct relations. The
Patriarch of Constantinople was recognized as vicar, legate, and
treasurer of Holy Etchmiadzin, that is, the only representative, and the
activities and fundraising by other legates was forbidden. The
boundaries of the diocesan divisions were also established and
clarified.
During
the four-year mandate of Patriarch Mateos, the simmering conflict
between the Armenian Church and the few hundred followers of
Protestantism exploded. Despite the assurances of Protestant leadership,
as James L. Barton wrote in 1908, that the American missionaries’
“supreme endeavor was to help the Armenians and the Greeks work out a
quiet but genuine reform in their respective churches,” their mission
was characterized as an attack on the “Mother Church.” On June 21, 1846
the Patriarch issued an encyclical of perpetual excommunication and
anathema against all Protestants, and four days later, a constitution
was drawn up for the forthcoming Armenian Evangelical Church, which
began on July 1.
The
Patriarch reopened the Lyceum of Scutari (1845), which had been
converted into a military hospital by decision of the Ottoman government
four years before. He also founded schools in Samatia, Smyrna, and
other places. During his tenure, 25 schools and many printing houses
functioned in Constantinople, several periodicals appeared, and various
cultural societies were founded. He also ensured that promising young
people were sent to Europe to pursue higher education.
He
also formed the two administrative bodies of self-government for
Western Armenians, the Religious Assembly (14 members) and the Supreme
Assembly (20 members), which became the grounds for the preparation of
the National Constitution fifteen years later. However, his activities
were met with resistance by the
amiras
(the
upper class magnates), and their pressure forced him to resign from his
position in September 1848. It is interesting that, after his
resignation from the highest position of the Armenian Church in the
Ottoman Empire, he became the primate of the diocese of Nicomedia
(Ismit) in 1853-1854, and abbot of the convent of Armash in 1855, when
he was also designated chairman of the Religious Assembly.
After
the death of Nerses V, the National Representative Assembly gathered in
Holy Etchmiadzin decided to strengthen the links between Etchmiadzin
and Constantinople and elect any Western Armenian ecclesiastic. The
election fell on Archbishop Mateos Chuhajian, who was elected on May 17,
1858, and consecrated on August 15, 1859.
During
his six-year tenure, Catholicos Mateos I was again in conflict with
Protestantism, this time in the diocese of Shamakha (current
Azerbaijan), and his confrontational position ended with the
incorporation of the few hundred Armenian Protestants to the Lutheran
Church, the only one recognized in the Russian Empire, in 1866.
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| Tombstone of Catholicos Mateos I |
He
tried to reform the Holy See and regulate monastic life. He paid
attention to education and in 1861 he approved the statutes of the
Nersisian School of Tiflis (founded by his predecessor Nerses V in
1824), and established the programs and organizational rules of the
parochial and diocesan schools, and at the same time incorporated many
laymen in the school boards. He put in order the library of the Holy See
and the first complete catalogue of manuscripts appeared in 1863.
Catholicos Mateos I passed away on August 22, 1865 in Vagharshapat, and was interred in the narthex (gavit) of the nearby monastery of Surp Gayane.
