ISAAC THE GREAT, ARMENIAN CATHOLICOS, ST.

C. 388 to 439; b. Cappadocia, c. 345; d. Belrotzatz, Sept. 7, 439. The son of nerses the great (d. 373) and a relative of gregory the illuminator, Isaac was educated in the Hellenistic culture at Caesarea in Cappadocia and at Constantinople. He married and had a daughter named Sahaganush, whose son became the military captain Vardan Mamikonian. Isaac embraced the religious life, probably after the death of his wife, became catholicos of Armenia, and gave great impulse to the development of monasticism in that country. He turned the patriarchal palace into a monastery and is said to have frequently retired to a wilderness with his disciples to spend time in solitary prayer. He set about reforming clerical discipline and selected as his auxiliary bishop the monk mesrop mashtotz (391), who is alleged to have aided him in the formation of a native liturgy and ritual, as well as in the translation of the Scriptures into Armenian (435–436).

In a synod, apparently at Ashtishat in 435, Isaac condemned as heretical the teaching of theodore of mop suestia and Diodore of Tarsus. Despite his sympathy for the Hellenistic culture of the West, Isaac managed to get along with the Persian rulers of Armenia and won many privileges for his Catholic subjects. He resigned his see rather than become involved in the political activities of the Armenian princes (428 to 432). Tradition credits him (probably unjustifiably) with the composition of the liturgical hymns for Thursday and Friday of Holy Week, the translation of the Pentateuch and Isaiah, and the formation of ecclesiastical canons, as well as an epistolary exchange with the Byzantine Emperor and the patriarch of Constantinople. He was buried at Ashtishat. Three of his letters are preserved in Moses of Khoren, History of Armenia Major (3.57); other letters, ed. J. Izmiveantz, Book of Letters (Tiflis, 1901), in Armenian.

Feast: Thursday after the third Sunday after Assumption; in Orthodox church, Sept. 9; Nov. 25 (St. Sahak).

Bibliography: moÏse de khoren, Histoire de l'Arménie, tr. v. langlois (Paris 1869) 153, 160–173. r. grousset, Histoire de l'Arménie (Paris 1947) 171. j. de morgan, Histoire du peuple arménien (Paris 1919) 175, 312. o. bardenhewer, Geschichte der altkirchlichen Literatur, 5:195–197. b. altaner, Patrology, 409–410. v. inglisian, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, 5:774;a. grillmeier and h. bacht, Das Konzil von Chalkedon: Geschichte und Gegenwart, 2:361–417. f. l. cross, The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 703. s. lyonnet, Recherches de science réligieuse, 25 (1935) 170–187; Les Origines de la version arménienne de la Bible et le Diatessaron (Rome 1950). a. vÖÖbus, Recherches de science réligieuse, (1950) 581–586. c. toumanoff, Traditio 10 (1954) 109–189.

[n. m. setian]