Church Influence On Armenian Culture

In 301 a.d. Armenia became the first country in the world to adopt Christianity as state religion. Since then Christianity became the spiritual core of the Armenian people and the soul of their culture. Due to the efforts of the church, Armenian culture was formed and acquired its distinguishing features. The invention of the alphabet by Mesrop Mashtots was primarily dictated by the missionary objectives and the desire to bring the word of God to the heart of each Armenian. In addition, it gave a powerful drive to the birth of national literature. Church applied a strong influence on the development of Armenian architecture, music, painting (in particular, portrait miniatures), Sculpture (cross-stones) and other types of art. For centuries, the largest representatives of the Armenian culture in the vast majority were monks, bishops and other church leaders or general public with unusually lively faith: Grigor Narekatsi, Komitas, philosopher David Anhaght, Nerses Shnorhali, miniaturist Toros Roslin, Mkhitar Gosh and many others. In the most different periods of the Armeinan history, Church inspired people, urging them to protect the homeland, helped to resist attempts of forced integration, and to fight against the foreign oppression. It often happened that the Armenian Catholicos or the bishop …show more content…
It is for this reason that religious faith takes an important place in the consciousness of Armenians. The very sense of belonging to the nation is mixed and partly identified with the Christian faith and commitment to the Armenian Church. Throughout centuries Armenia managed to keep its distinctive culture and traditions and not to give in to the influence its neighbors mainly because of its allegiance to religious