"Life Under the Sign of the Cross" (continued) - Tirayr MARTIKYAN

Tirayr Martikyan's article is devoted to the publication of fragments from the memoirs of Archbishop Tirayr Martikyan, longtime head of the Diocese of Romania and Bulgaria of the Armenian Apostolic Church, covering the dramatic period between the death of Catholicos Gevorg VI in 1954 and the election of the new Supreme Patriarch, Vazgen I. This material is a continuation of the publication begun in the previous issue of the journal.

Introduction and Context

The author reconstructs the intra-church situation that developed in Etchmiadzin after the death of Gevorg VI, when Archbishop Vahan (Kostanyan), a native of the Isfahan diocese, appropriated actual power for himself without holding elections for a locum tenens. The memoirist describes in detail the atmosphere of arbitrary rule that prevailed during this period at the theological academy and monastery.

Key Narrative Threads

The memoirs are structured around several interconnected episodes:

• The conflict surrounding a letter written by seminary students to the republican Council for Armenian Church Affairs criticizing the chaotic administration under Inspector Martirosyan;
• The persecution of the author of the letter — the memoirist himself — by Vahan srbazan, including everyday deprivations and coercion into taking monastic vows;
• The intervention of Minas Minasyan at a session of the Supreme Spiritual Council, which exposed the falsification of the document presented;
• The author's ordination on the feast of Tsaghkazard in 1955 at the Ripsime Monastery, to which the monastics had been sent by Sahak srbazan due to the restoration of the cathedral funded by the Gulbenkian Foundation.

Portrait Sketches

Considerable space is devoted to the figure of Sahak srbazan — a former priest who had endured Siberian exile, a man with a subtle sense of humor, whose personality is revealed through a series of everyday anecdotes (the episode with the thief and the hearing aid, the "mirror" game with a child, an ironic characterization of Catholicos Vazgen I as "unfortunate").

The Baku Period

A separate section is devoted to the author's five-year "exile" to the Baku diocese, where he served as secretary to the diocesan head Gareguin Hakobyan. A key episode is the memoirist's refusal to participate in delivering a bribe to the chairman of the republican Council for Religious Affairs, which led to a scandal of national proportions and the subsequent exposure of a secret letter from Vahan srbazan describing the author as a "dangerous revolutionary."

Conclusion

The narrative concludes with a description of the circumstances under which the author, despite opposition from Vahan srbazan, secured status as a delegate from the Kirovabad community for the election of the new Catholicos, becoming the youngest participant at the Council. The key conclusion of the text is that personal steadfastness and adherence to canonical principles allowed the memoirist to endure a period of administrative arbitrariness and slander, preserving his clerical rank and subsequently gaining recognition from Catholicos Vazgen I, who changed his initially biased attitude toward the author.