Timeless Christians

Mesrob

Mesrob made Armenia what it became. Born in 354, he became a memorable patriarch and historian for his nation, and played an even more important role, as we shall show.

He was blessed to obtain his education under Nerses Magnus, the fourth patriarch of Armenia after Gregory the Illuminator. Mesrob served as the patriarch's secretary, and held the same office for King Varaztad. When the Romans dethroned the king in 386, Mesrob took holy orders. He then labored to overthrow the remaining pockets of idolatry in the country, and entered on the most important work of his life. At that time, the Armenian church used the Syriac Bible. Armenia had no written language of its own.

Mesrob devoted himself to reviving the ancient Armenian culture, and give it a national literature. His first step was to restore, if not to invent, an alphabet for the Armenian tongue. Learning that a Syrian bishop, one Daniel, possessed an ancient Armenian alphabet, Mesrobes sent a priest named Abel to him, who brought it back. With this as a basis and with the help of other scholars who possessed some traditionary knowledge of ancient Armenian, he invented the alphabet which the Armenians adopted in 406.

Many young men came to study with him. He sent the brightest overseas to gain more knowledge at major schools and to bring back authentic copies of the Bible and other texts. They translated these into Armenian. Through their labors, the Armenian church possessed its own translation of the Bible by 410. Thanks to Mesrob and his helpers, Armenia remained a strong, tightly knit nation for centuries afterward, bound together by their common language, the Bible, and books. The Turks conquered Armenia in the fifteenth century and destroyed its culture and people in the twentieth century.

Because he cared for his nation and its culture, and recognized the importance of the Bible, Mesrob's name cannot be separated from the history of Armenia.

by Dan Graves