Editing Gregory the Illuminator (section)

== Christianization of Armenia ==
{{Main|Christianization of Armenia}}
[[File:San Gregorio Armeno gettato nel pozzo (dettaglio) - F. Fracanzano.png|thumb|St. Gregory of Armenia is cast into the pit by [[Francesco Fracanzano]]]]
After the birth of their sons, [[Julitta of Armenia|Mariam]] and Gregory separated, and Gregory went to Armenia to enter the service of King [[Tiridates III of Armenia|Tiridates III]], son of the assassinated king Khosrov II.{{Sfn|Thomson|1976|pp=xxxi–xxxii}}{{Sfn|Garsoïan|1997|p=81}}{{Efn|One Greek version of Agathangelos tells a significantly different story of Gregory's wife, who is called [[Julitta of Armenia|Julitta]]. In this version, Gregory's wife and sons are implied to have followed him to Armenia, but fled back to Caesarea after Gregory's imprisonment. After Gregory was released from imprisonment, his wife went to Armenia to join him, leaving behind their sons in Caesarea, but Gregory refused to return to married life, instead asking the king to put his wife in charge of the holy virgins and temporarily lead the Christians in worship.{{sfn|Thomson|1976|pp=xxxii–xxxiii}}}} After Gregory refused to sacrifice to the goddess [[Anahit]], the king had Gregory imprisoned and subjected to many tortures.{{Sfn|Thomson|1976|pp=xlii–xliii}} Once Tiridates discovered that Gregory was the son of his father's killer, he had Gregory thrown into a deep pit called [[Khor Virap]] near [[Artaxata]], where he remained for thirteen (or fifteen) years.{{Sfn|Garsoïan|1997|p=81}}{{Sfn|Lang|1970|p=156}}{{Sfn|Thomson|1984}} In Agathangelos's history, Gregory is miraculously saved and brought out from the pit after Tiridates' sister [[Khosrovidukht (sister of Tiridates III of Armenia)|Khosrovidukht]] sees a vision.{{Sfn|Garsoïan|1997|p=81}} Gregory then healed the king, who, Agathangelos writes, had been transformed into a wild boar for his sinful behavior.{{Sfn|Garsoïan|1997|p=81}} Tiridates and his court accepted Christianity, making Armenia the first state to adopt Christianity as its official religion.{{Sfn|Thomson|1994|p=16}}{{efn|Interpretations that favor an earlier date for Tiridates' conversion argue that the Armenian king had grown disillusioned with his alliance with Rome and stopped following [[Diocletian]]'s anti-Christian policy, instead adopting Christianity to strengthen the state and further separate Armenia from Rome and Persia.{{sfn|"Grigor I Lusavorichʻ," Armenian Soviet Encyclopedia|1977}} Those who favor the later date of 314 argue that Tiridates, as a loyal client-king of Rome, could not have set up Christianity as Armenia's state religion in contradiction to Rome's anti-Christian policy at the time, and place the conversion after the [[Edict of Milan]] in 313.{{Sfn|Garsoïan|1997|p=82}}}}

[[File:Gregory the Illuminator.jpg|thumb|''The Baptism of the Armenian People'' (1892), by [[Ivan Aivazovsky]]]]

After being released, Gregory preached the Christian faith in Armenia and erected shrines to the martyrs [[Saint Gayane Church|Gayane]] and [[Hripsime]] in [[Vagharshapat]] on a spot indicated to him in a vision.{{Sfn|Garsoïan|1997|p=81}}{{Efn|Scholar [[Robert W. Thomson]] notes that, although Vagharshapat-Ejmiatsin had "clearly been a holy shrine" from early on in Christian Armenian history, the association of Gregory with Vagharshapat dates from after the partition of Armenia in 387, when the mother see of the Armenian Church moved to Eastern Armenia. The actual original center of the Armenian Church was at [[Ashtishat]].{{sfn|Thomson|1984}}{{sfn|Thomson|1994|p=19}}}} Vagharshapat would later become home to the [[Etchmiadzin Cathedral|mother church]] of Armenian Christianity and, by medieval times, called Ejmiatsin ("descent of the only-begotten") in reference to Gregory's vision.{{Sfn|Thomson|1976|p=478}}{{Efn|The figure who appears to Gregory was later identified with Christ in the Armenian tradition, although this is not explicitly stated in Agathangelos.{{sfn|Thomson|1994|p=19}}}} Gregory, sometimes accompanied by Tiridates,{{Sfn|Thomson|1994|p=19}} went around Armenia destroying pagan [[temple]]s, defeating the armed resistance of the pagan priests.{{Sfn|Russell|2004|p=358}} Gregory then went to Caesarea with a retinue of Armenian princes and was consecrated bishop of Armenia by [[Leontius of Caesarea]].{{Sfn|Garsoïan|1997|p=81}} Until the death of [[Nerses I]] in the late fourth century, Gregory's successors would go to Caesarea to be confirmed as bishops of Armenia, and Armenia remained under the titular authority of the metropolitans of Caesarea.{{Sfn|Thomson|1976|p=lxxix}}

Returning to Armenia, Gregory raised churches in place of the destroyed pagan temples and seized their estates and wealth for the Armenian Church and his house.{{Sfn|Thomson|1994|p=19}}{{Efn|According to the fifth-century history attributed to [[Faustus of Byzantium]], by the time of Gregory's descendant Patriarch [[Nerses I]], the domains of the Gregorid house amounted to fifteen districts (''gawaṛ''s).{{sfn|Garsoïan|1989|p=139}}}} On the site of the destroyed temple to [[Vahagn]] at [[Ashtishat]], Gregory raised a church which became the original center of the Armenian Church and remained so until after the partition of the country in 387.{{Sfn|Garsoïan|1997|pp=81–82}}{{Sfn|Thomson|1994|p=19}} Gregory met King Tiridates near the town of [[Bagavan]] and baptized the Armenian king, army and people in the [[Euphrates]].{{Sfn|Garsoïan|1997|pp=81–82}} In two non-Armenian versions of Agathangelos's history, Gregory also baptizes together with Tiridates the kings of [[Caucasian Albania]], [[Kingdom of Iberia|Georgia]] and [[Lazica]]/Abkhazia.{{Sfn|Thomson|1976|pp=lxviii–lxix}} He founded schools for the Christian education of children, where the languages of instruction were [[Ancient Greek|Greek]] and [[Syriac language|Syriac]].{{sfn|"Grigor I Lusavorichʻ," Armenian Soviet Encyclopedia|1977}}{{Sfn|Thomson|1976|p=375}} He established the ecclesiastical structure of Armenia, appointing as bishops some of the children of pagan priests.{{sfn|"Grigor I Lusavorichʻ," Armenian Soviet Encyclopedia|1977}}{{Sfn|Thomson|1976|loc=p. 379: "He took some of the pagan priests' children and brought them up in his own sight and under his own care, giving them instruction and raising them with spiritual care and fear. Those who were worthy of attaining the rank of bishop received ordination from him"}} Gregory is also said to have journeyed to Rome with King Tiridates in an embassy to the recently converted [[Constantine the Great]], but scholar [[Robert W. Thomson]] views this as fictional.{{Sfn|Thomson|1994|p=16}}

The conversion of Armenia to Christianity is traditionally dated to 301, but modern scholarship considers a later date, approximately 314, to be a more likely.{{Sfn|Garsoïan|1997|p=82}} Additionally, the history of Agathangelos depicts the spread of Christianity of Armenia as having occurred practically entirely within Gregory's lifetime, when, in fact, it was a more gradual process.{{Sfn|Thomson|1994|p=22}}{{Sfn|Garsoïan|1997|pp=82–83}}