Albanian Church of Gandzasar in the decrees of Azerbaijani rulers
Rizvan HUSEYNOV, Director of the Center for the History of the Caucasus,
Researcher at the Institute for Human Rights of the Azerbaijani National
Academy of Sciences
This article
is devoted to Armenian falsifications aimed at misappropriating Albanian
manuscript heritage and churches on the territory of present-day Armenia and in
the occupied Azerbaijani lands of Karabakh. According to sources, Armenian Church superiors settled with the
permission of Jahanshah, the ruler of the Azerbaijani state of Qara Qoyunlu in
the village of Uchkilisa - now Echmiadzin - in 1441. This information is
confirmed by Encyclopaedia Britannica (1910), where the article “Armenian
Church” states that Armenian catholicoses first moved to Echmiadzin in 1441
(1).
The article
“Armenia” in the same place notes that Armenia is geographically located in
Asia Minor, not in the Caucasus (2). It should be noted that even before 1441
the Armenian clergy gradually flocked to the vicinity of Uchkilisa in several
decades and bought land for their church here with the permission of Azerbaijani
rulers. Numerous medieval decrees and bills of sale signed by Azerbaijani
rulers and feudal lords from the archives of Armenian catholicoses were collected
and analyzed by the Soviet Armenian scientist A. D. Papazyan and then published
by the Academy of Sciences of the Armenian SSR as a series of books called
“Persian Documents of Matenadaran” in 1956, 1959 and 1968 respectively (3).
In Armenia,
the Matenadaran archive keeps the 1430 bill of sale for the village of
Uchkilisa compiled on the basis of three separate bills of sale from 1428-1430,
which show how the Armenian clergymen began to buy land from Azerbaijani feudal
lords for their future residence. The original bill of sale shows that 4/6 of
land in the village of Vagarshapat (Uchkilisa) were acquired in three steps
from specific Azerbaijani landowners mentioned by name in the bill of sale (4).
It is important
to note that this and four other bills of sale kept in Matenadaran (Doc. 5, 8,
9 and 23) indicate these lands as part of Azerbaijan. Therefore, Papazyan was
forced to point out that the Chukhur-Sa’d vilayet is referred to as one “of
the regions of Georgia subordinate to the country of Azerbaijan”. Papazyan
tried to explain in his own manner why Echmiadzin (Uchkilisa), as well as the
entire territory of modern Armenia were located within Azerbaijan in the Middle
Ages. According to him, this is the result of the “administrative” or “financial”
division of the medieval Safavid Empire: “Under
the Safavids, the country was divided into four major financial departments
(departemens) - Iraq, Fars, Azerbaijan and Khorasan.” He cites V.
Minorskiy, who indicates that Azerbaijan had four baylarbaydoms: Tabriz, Chukhur-S’ad,
Karabakh and Shirvan (5). But the references above confirm that the Azerbaijani possessions included vast territories in the Caucasus,
including present-day Armenia (Chukhur-S’ad), Karabakh and Shirvan. It is
clear that Papazyan had to stretch the truth and play with formulations so as
not to hurt the feelings of Armenian nationalists, who sensitively reacted to
any mention of the fact that Armenia was created on medieval Azerbaijani lands.
After all, any more or less literate Orientalist understands that the
abovementioned medieval administrative and financial subordination is directly
indicative of the political sovereignty of Azerbaijan over these lands of the
Caucasus.
 |
| A fragment of
the article “The Armenian Church,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1910 |
After the
Armenian Church gained a foothold in Echmiadzin, where the residence of the
Patriarchs of the Albanian Church had been located for centuries, the deliberate Armenification of the rich
heritage of the Christian peoples of the region began. The Armenification of
Albanian heritage took on a total nature in the early 19th century, when the
mass settlement of Armenians in the region began after Azerbaijani territories
in the Caucasus were incorporated into Russia. During the 19th and 20th centuries, more than
one million Armenians from Persia, Turkey and the Middle East were resettled to
the South Caucasus. After that, the Russian monarchy abolished the Albanian
Autocephalous Church, which had served as one of the most important spiritual
centers of the region since the 4th century, and handed over its temples, archives
and flock to the Armenian Church of Echmiadzin. Numerous Albanian manuscripts were copied in the Armenian language and
their content was faked, and as a result, there appeared a whole layer of
fabricated sources that claimed the belonging of the Albanian church and
its flock to Armenian ethnicity. Besides purely Albanian manuscripts and texts,
numerous decrees by medieval Azerbaijani
rulers of Qara Qoyunlu, Aq Qoyunlu and Safavids, the originals of which in
Azeri and Persian then disappeared or were destroyed, were rewritten in Armenian.
These rewritten copies, together with numerous other documents, were
transferred to Echmiadzin and Matenadaran, where they are now used as the
original medieval sources on Armenian history. Some of these decrees of
Azerbaijani rulers issued to Albanian and Armenian monasteries were included in
the abovementioned “Persian Documents of Matenadaran”.
%2B%D0%BE%D1%82%2B1430%2B%D0%B3%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%B0%2C.bmp) |
| A deed of
1430 on the sale of the village of Vagarshapat (Uchkilisa) to an Armenian
bishop |
Papazyan, distorting the meaning of the documents in his study and adding the “necessary” words to them, is trying to build the history of medieval Armenia, which did not exist in this territory in that historical period. At the same time, in many medieval documents he adds the word “Armenian” and “Armenia” at his own discretion, adds the ending “yan” to the surnames of persons referred to in the documents and Armenifies regional place names. The main object of Papazyan’s fraud is the heritage of Caucasian Albania and Azerbaijani Turks.
At the same
time, thanks to the documents cited in the writings of Papazyan, it is possible
to restore some details of the medieval history of the Albanian Church. Let’s
address copies of the decrees of Azerbaijani rulers copied by Armenian priests
from the original texts seized from the archives of Gandzasar in 1840. Apparently,
these documents from the archives of
Gandzasar fell into the hands of the Armenian Church after 1836, when the
Albanian Church was abolished, and its temples, manuscripts, archives and
property were handed over to Echmiadzin. It must be noted that the original
decrees of Azerbaijani rulers mysteriously disappeared from the archives of
Gandzasar, and only a few copies made by the abbot of the Sanain monastery,
Archbishop Sargis Jalalyan (1810-1879), were delivered to Echmiadzin. That is
we are dealing not with the originals, but with Armenian copies, which have
masses of falsifications and corrections to the text. The miserable fate of the
Gandzasar archives was noted by Papazyan himself: “During his travels in Artsakh, Archbishop Sargis Jalalyan took this
and several other decrees (not known if they were originals or copies) from the
Catholicosate of Gandzasar. It is curious that the decrees taken by Jalalyan,
according to his testimony, included edicts (certificates) of Armenian kings
too. These decrees disappeared from his library during his trip to Russia.
Fearing that the decrees in the Persian language may be subject to the same
fate, he translated them (number 15) into the Armenian language and placed them
as an annex to the second volume of his work “Journey to Great Armenia”
published in 1858 (6). The Persian
copies of these decrees, taken probably by Sargis Jalalyan himself, are
currently in the collection of Persian documents of Matenadaran”. (7)
 |
| A decree by
Begum Khatun, the wife of Sultan Jahan Qara Qoyunlu dated 1462, issued to
Gandzasar Catholicos Ioannes, confirming his patriarchal rights |
We are dealing with Armenian translations of the decrees of Azerbaijani rulers, which Papazyan, like all Soviet science, stubbornly called “Persian”. But even in such a distorted and rewritten form, these decrees provide a wealth of information about Azerbaijan and the Albanian Christian heritage. Let’s cite some examples of fraud and falsification committed by Papazyan. In the decree of 1462 by Begum Khatun, the wife of Sultan Jahanshah Qara Qoyunlu, issued to Gandzasar Catholicos Ioannes, he is referred to as “the pride of the Christians and the catholicos of the vilayet of Agvank (Albania)” (the Gandzasar monastery complex is located on the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh currently occupied by Armenia - R. H.). However, Papazyan tries to present the Gandzasar catholicos as being subordinate to Armenia and Armenian catholicoses, although this decree of Begum Khatun clearly states that “Armenians of this vilayet are subordinate to the Albanian catholicos”. Here, Armenians means not ethnicity, but the Albanian population of the Armenian-Gregorian faith. This decree confirms the patriarchal rights of the Albanian catholicos of Gandzasar, which were previously granted to them by Jahanshah Qara Qoyunlu (1397-1467) and even earlier Sheikh Uveys Jelairid (1356-1374) (8).
The decree of
Begum Khatun makes it clear that the Gandzasar patriarch had direct links with
the Albanian rulers of Cilicia (Asia Minor), who settled here in the 10th- 13th
centuries. Today Armenian science is
trying to take credit for all the Albanian heritage of the Cilician Hethumids
who moved to the Cilician city of Sis headed by Albanian Prince Hethum. One of
the most important primary sources of the 14th century - the book of Muhammad
Nakhchivani “Dastur ul-Katib” cited the full title of the kings of Cilicia,
with which the Turkic rulers turned to them: “To the venerable friend, great Basileus, glory of Alexander’s family,
shelter of Christians and the king of Sis...” (9). Besides Albanian
patriarchs, Azerbaijani rulers supported Armenian-Haykan church dignitaries as
well. It is thanks to this support that Armenian catholicoses, who also settled
in Cilicia, relocated to Echmiadzin later and established themselves here. In
particular, Papazyan rightly notes that Begum Khatun had special respect and
provided support for Catholicos Akhtamartsi Zakaria, to whom she handed over
the Catholicosate of Echmiadzin (10).
The 1487 decree
of Yaqub, the shah of the Azerbaijani state of Aq Qoyunlu, to the Albanian Catholicos
of Gand- zasar Shmavon, exempts his congregation from different taxes and
reports that Agvank (Albania) is one of
the vilayets of Azerbaijan: “Let
amirs, hakims, darugas, well- born, noble and prominent people, meliks,
kandkhudas and arbabs of all Azerbaijan, all mutasadds for divan affairs and
mubashirs for royal affairs of the vilayet of Agvank know...” (11). This
decree mentions Armenian priests who came to confirm their rights in Gandzasar,
but even here their Armenian Gregorian religion, not ethnicity, is meant. The fact is that in the Middle Ages and
later, all persons of the Armenian-Gregorian religion were called “Armenians”,
which is cleverly used today by modern Armenian falsifiers, attributing all
the Armenian Gregorian heritage of
very different peoples to the Haykan people: Armenian Kipchaks, Assyrians,
Udis, Tats, Kurds and others.
The Azerbaijani
Safavid state also confirmed the previous decrees on the patriarchal rights of
Gandzasar catholicoses. In particular, this is stated in the decree of Shah Tahmasib I of 1570 (12).
At the
beginning of the 17th century, Azerbaijan frequently became a scene of battles
in the Ottoman-Safavid wars. At a time when Ottoman troops captured a significant part of Azerbaijan, including
Karabakh, Ottoman henchmen - Armenian-Haykan churchmen from Asia Minor - were appointed catholicoses here.
This caused a bitter struggle between them and the legal heirs of the Gandzasar
Patriarchate from the Albanian family of Prince Hasan Jalal, who built the
Albanian temples of Gandzasar and other territories that were part of his
Khachen principality in the 12th century. Only after the retreat of the Ottoman
army from Azerbaijan, was the Catholicosate in Gandzasar returned to the
descendants of Hasan Jalal. This is referred to in the decree of Safavid Shah
Abbas I and Papazyan’s commentary accompanying this document (13). Another
decree by Shah Abbas I speaks about the restoration of Gandzasar temples and
its taxation (14).
Here it would
be appropriate to touch on a story from the early 17th century connected with
the Armenian Catholicos Melkiset and the ruler of the Azerbaijani Erivan Khanate,
Amirgune. In this period, Armenians of different faiths were engaged in a
struggle in which an important role was played by European rulers who sought to
use the Armenians for their own purposes. With the efforts of European monarchies
and the Roman Catholic Church, the overwhelming majority of Armenians in the
Middle East, Asia Minor and Europe embraced Catholicism and were engaged in an
ideological war with Monophysite Armenians in the Caucasus. A clear idea about
the nature of this confrontation is given by the theft by “Frankish Paters” (Armenian Catholics) from Uchkilisa
(Echmiadzin) of the relics of St. Hripsime and Gayane, which occurred in 1610.
By the decree of Safavid Shah Abbas I, Khan Amirgune sent a detachment that
caught the thieves and took the relics away from them. All the perpetrators of this crime, including the Catholicos of
Echmiadzin Melkiset were punished (15). This event is narrated in the work
of Armenian chronicler Arakel Davrizhetsi (of Tabriz), who points to the
involvement in the theft of Catholicos Melkiset, who allowed the Catholics to take
away the relics of saints from Uchkilisa for a bribe (16).
References
1. The
Encyclopaedia Britannica: a dictionary of arts, sciences, literature and
general information. 11 Edition, Volume II, New York: Encyclopaedia Britannica
– 1910, p. 571
2. Указ. соч., р 564
3. Персидские документы Матенадарана (ПДМ) 1, Указы, составил А. Д.
Папазян, вып. I (XV-XVI вв.), Ереван, 1956; вып. II (1600-1650 гг.), Ереван,
1959; Персидские документы Матенадарана (ПДМ) II. Купчие. Выпуск I (XIV—XVI
вв.). Ереван, 1968
4. ДОКУМЕНТ 4. Купчая на село Вагаршапат
(Учкилиса) от 1430 года, составленная на основании трех отдельных купчих от
1428-1430 гг. и заключающая их основное содержание.Папка 1з, док. 1004, подлинник, разм. 3,30 x
22 см. письмо насх // А.Д.Папазян. Персидские документы Матенадарана, II.
Купчие. Выпуск первый (XIV-XVI вв.). Ереван. АН АрмССР. 1968, стр. 346, 515-522
5. Указ. соч., стр. 347
6. С. Джалалянц. «Путешествие в Великую Армению». (на армянском яз.) Т.2.
– Тифлис, 1858, .стр. 480-501
7. А.Д.Папазян. Персидские документы Матенадарана, I. Указы. Выпуск первый
(XV-XVI вв.). Ереван. АН АрмССР. 1956, стр. 198
8. ДОКУМЕНТ 3, Указ Бегум хатун, жены султана Джаханшаха Кара-Коюнлу от 1462 г.,
выданный Гандзасарскому католикосу Иоаннесу, коим удостоверяются его патриаршие
права и предлагается государственным служащим данной местности не только не
притеснять его и подчиненное ему духовенство взиманием разнообразных податей,
но и в случае надобности оказывать им помощь. (Папка 2а, документ № 5, копия,
размер 106 x 33 см, письмо шикастэ-дивани) // А.Д.Папазян. Персидские документы
Матенадарана, I. Указы. Выпуск первый (XV-XVI вв.). Ереван. АН АрмССР. 1956,
стр. 197-200)
9. см. ИВАН, Архив Тизенгаузена В. Г., фонд 52, хр. 15, «Дастур-ул-кятиб»,
стр. 1176. // А.Д.Папазян. Персидские документы Матенадарана, I. Указы. Выпуск
первый (XV-XVI вв.). Ереван. АН АрмССР. 1956, стр. 199
10. Аракел Даврижеци, История, стр. 420-421, на древнеарм. яз. // Указ.
соч., стр. 198
11. Указ Якуба падишаха Ак-Коюнлу от 1487 г.
Гандзасарскому католикосу Шмавону, коим он утверждает его патриаршие права и
освобождает подчиненное ему армянское духовенство от различных податей. (Папка 2а, документ № 8, копия, размер
141х 32 см, письмо шикастэ-дивани) // Указ. соч., стр. 171-172
12. Документ 18 — Указ шаха Тахмаспа I Сефевида от
1570 г., данный Гандзасарскому католикосу Григору, коим он вновь утверждает его
патриаршие права и предписывает государственным должностным лицам на местах не
притеснять его разными налогами и обязательствами., Папка 2а, документ № 20а, копия, размер
100 х 33 см, письмо шикастэ-дивани) // Указ. соч. стр. 186-187
13. Документ 5 — Указ шаха Аббаса I Сефевида от 1606
г., удостоверяющий патриаршие права Гандзасарского католикоса Иоаннеса. (Папка 2а, документ № 25а, копия,
размер 89 х 33 см, письмо шикастэ) // Указ. соч., стр. 315, 382-383
14. Документ 7 — Указ шаха Аббаса I Сефевида от 1607
г. относительно тафавут-е джизья. взимаемой с монахов Гандзасарского монастыря. (Папка 2а, документ № 27, копия,
размер 46 х 33 см, письмо шикастэ) // Указ. соч., стр. 318
15. Документ 10 — Указ шаха Аббаса I Сефевида от 1610
г. бегларбеку Еревана, Амир-Гуна хану, коим предписывается произвести на месте
расследование относительно похищения мощей Рипсиме, совершенного католическими
священниками. (Папка
1а, документ № 34, оригинал, размер 22 х 11,5 см, письмо шикастэ) // Указ.
соч., стр. 321
16. Аракел Даврижеци. Книга историй. М. 1973, стр. 186-187
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