Saint Gregory The Illuminator Research Paper

Saint Gregory the Illuminator is widely regarded as the saint that helped convert Armenia to Christianity. He was a monk and what he learned in his monastic life helped guide him on his mission to convert Armenia to Christianity.

Saint Gregory the Illuminator was not the first person to bring Christianity to Armenia. The first people to do that were two of Jesus’s apostles Bartholomew and Thaddeus. Saint Judas Thaddaeus was the first person to do it. Saint Judas Thaddaeus first converted Abgar V of Edessa to Christianity in 30 AD after he cured him of leprosy with the Image of Edessa. Thaddaeus was then commissioned by Abgar to preach to people throughout Armenia, where he converted the daughter of king Sanatruk. She was eventually martyred alongside Thaddeus when the king changed his mind.

The next apostle to try to bring Christianity to Armenia was Saint Bartholomew. He converted Polymius, the king of Armenia, to Christianity, and then Astyages, his brother, consequently ordered Bartholomew's execution. He was martyred in martyred in Albanopolis in Armenia by getting skinned alive.

Armenian Christians were persecuted by kings Axidares, Khosrov I, and Tiridates III, until Tiridates III was converted to Christianity by Gregory the Illuminator.

Saint Gregory the Illuminator

He was influenced partly by the fact that Gregory was the son of his father's enemy, so he ordered Gregory imprisoned for fifteen years in a pit on the Ararat Plain under the present day church of Khor Virap which is located near the historical city Artashat in Armenia (there is some dispute wither this really happened, but more on that later). Gregory was eventually called out of his pit in 297 to restore to sanity Tiridates III, who had lost all reason after he was betrayed by Roman emperor Diocletian. Diocletian invaded Armenia and a lot of territory from western provinces of Greater Armenia became protectorates of