ST. GREGORY THE ILLUMINATOR
Սուրբ Գրիգոր Լուսաւորիչ · SOURP KRIKOR LOUSAVORICH The saint who changed the course of Armenian historyMore than 1,700 years ago, a Christian named Gregory stood before the king of Armenia and refused to worship the old gods. The decision nearly cost him his life. He was tortured and imprisoned in a deep underground pit — and according to Armenian tradition, he remained there for thirteen years.
BEFORE HE WAS THE ILLUMINATOR
Gregory was born during a turbulent period in Armenian history. According to the traditional account preserved by the fifth-century Armenian historian Agathangelos, Gregory’s father, Anak, was involved in the assassination of the Armenian king Khosrov. Anak and much of his family were then killed.
Gregory survived and was taken west to Caesarea in Cappadocia, in what is now central Turkey, where he was raised as a Christian.
Years later, he returned to Armenia and entered the service of King Drtad III — Trdat in Eastern Armenian, Tiridates in English — the son of the king his father had helped kill. The Armenian Church’s account emphasizes the extraordinary nature of that relationship: Gregory chose to serve the son of his father’s enemy.
Eventually, however, Gregory’s Christian faith brought the two men into direct conflict.
THE REFUSAL
King Drtad followed Armenia’s pre-Christian religious traditions. At the temple of the goddess Anahit, the king ordered Gregory to take part in a sacrifice and place a wreath before the deity.
Gregory refused. He openly declared his Christian faith instead.
According to Armenian Church tradition, Drtad had Gregory tortured and ultimately ordered him thrown into a prison pit near the ancient city of Artashad. The place became known as:
THIRTEEN YEARS IN THE PIT
The traditional story says Gregory spent thirteen years imprisoned underground. The pit still exists.
Today, visitors to Khor Virab Monastery can descend a narrow ladder into the chamber associated with Gregory’s imprisonment. The monastery stands close to Armenia’s modern border with Turkey, with Mount Ararat rising dramatically behind it. The Vatican describes Khor Virab as one of the Armenian Church’s most sacred places.
That landscape connects two Junior Explorer stories. Adventure 2 introduces Mount Ararat. Adventure 8 introduces St. Gregory. At Khor Virab, the two stories meet.
A KING IN CRISIS
While Gregory was imprisoned, another event became part of the Armenian Christian story. A group of Christian women led by Gayané had fled Roman persecution and arrived in Armenia. Among them was Hripsimé.
According to the traditional account, King Drtad wanted Hripsimé to marry him. She refused, and the king ordered Hripsimé, Gayané and their companions killed.
Soon afterward, Drtad became gravely ill. The Armenian tradition describes his condition dramatically: the king lost his reason and behaved like a wild boar.
His sister, Khosrovidoukht, then had a vision. She was told that only Gregory — the man everyone assumed had died years earlier in the pit — could heal him. The Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin preserves this story as part of the Armenian Church’s liturgical tradition.
GREGORY WAS BROUGHT OUT. HE WAS ALIVE.
THE PRISONER HEALS THE KING
Gregory prayed for the king, and according to Armenian Christian tradition, Drtad was healed.
The story contains a remarkable reversal. The king who had imprisoned Gregory now listened to him. The persecutor of Christians became a supporter of Christianity.
Gregory began preaching openly, and Drtad embraced the Christian faith. This moment became one of the defining turning points in Armenian history.
THE FIRST CHRISTIAN STATE
The Armenian Apostolic Church traditionally dates Armenia’s adoption of Christianity as the state religion to 301 AD. Under King Drtad III and St. Gregory the Illuminator, Armenia is therefore traditionally recognized as the first state to officially adopt Christianity — before Christianity became tolerated and later dominant in the Roman Empire. The Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin continues to commemorate 301 as the year of Armenia’s great conversion.
There is an important historical note. Modern scholars debate the exact chronology. Some place the formal conversion somewhat later, around 314–315, after the Roman Empire had legalized Christianity. Encyclopaedia Iranica describes the later dating as probable, though not provable.
The larger historical point is not in dispute: Armenia became the world’s first kingdom to establish Christianity as its state religion in the early fourth century.
FROM GREGORY TO THE ARMENIAN CHURCH
Gregory did not create Christianity in Armenia from nothing. Armenian Church tradition traces Christianity in Armenia back to the apostles St. Thaddeus and St. Bartholomew, which is why the church is called Apostolic.
Gregory’s role came later. He led the conversion of the royal house and helped organize Christianity as the faith of the Armenian state. He was consecrated bishop in Caesarea and is remembered as the first Catholicos of the Armenians. That is why Armenians often call him the Father of our Faith.
And it is why his title is so important:
Լուսաւորիչ — LOUSAVORICH — ILLUMINATOR
The one who brought light.
A VISION AT ETCHMIADZIN
The story of St. Gregory continues at another of Armenia’s most sacred places. According to Armenian Church tradition, Gregory had a vision in which Christ descended from heaven and struck the ground with a golden hammer, revealing the place where Armenia’s mother cathedral should be built.
That place became Holy Etchmiadzin. The Armenian name Էջմիածին is understood as “the Descent of the Only-Begotten.” The Mother See identifies Gregory’s vision as the foundation story of the cathedral and of Etchmiadzin’s role as the spiritual center of the Armenian Church.
So the story that begins in darkness at Khor Virab ends in an image of light. That contrast is at the heart of Gregory’s Armenian title.
FROM THE PIT CAME THE ILLUMINATOR.
KHOR VIRAB TODAY
Centuries later, Armenians still make pilgrimages to Khor Virab. The monastery buildings visible today are much later than Gregory himself, but the site preserves the memory of the ancient prison associated with him. Pilgrims can enter the chapel and descend into the underground chamber.
Outside is one of the most recognizable views in Armenia: Khor Virab in the foreground, Mount Ararat beyond it. The site brings together faith, history, landscape and Armenian identity in a single place.
ST. GREGORY AROUND THE WORLD
Gregory’s importance did not remain confined to Armenia. He is venerated beyond the Armenian Apostolic Church, including in other ancient Christian traditions and in the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches.
Armenian churches around the world bear his name. His image appears in icons and church decoration. His story is remembered in the Armenian Church calendar through several feast days, including commemorations of his imprisonment, his emergence from the pit and the discovery of his relics.
And his name remains familiar in Armenian families more than seventeen centuries later: Krikor.
FIND HIM AT ST. SARKIS
You do not have to travel to Khor Virab or Etchmiadzin to encounter St. Gregory’s story. Adventure 8 asks Junior Explorers to step inside St. Sarkis Armenian Church and find his icon near one of the candle nooks.
When you find him, look closely. He is not simply a figure from a very old story. He represents one of the moments that shaped Armenian culture for every century that followed.
Christianity influenced Armenian architecture, manuscripts, music, festivals, art, education and eventually even the creation of the Armenian alphabet. That makes St. Gregory’s story connected to almost everything else Junior Explorers encounter at ArmeniaFest.
FROM DARKNESS TO LIGHT
There is a reason Armenians did not remember Gregory simply as a bishop or missionary. They called him Լուսաւորիչ — Lousavorich. The Illuminator.
His story moves from persecution to faith, from a prison pit to freedom, and from an imprisoned Christian to the transformation of an entire kingdom.
Whether you encounter him in an icon in Dallas, descend into the pit at Khor Virab, or stand inside the Mother Cathedral of Holy Etchmiadzin, the same story follows him.
A MAN WAS PLACED IN DARKNESS.
AND ARMENIANS REMEMBER HIM FOR BRINGING LIGHT.
NINE ADVENTURES IN THE GUIDE
Pomegranates, Mount Ararat, khachkars, Kochari, the Armenian alphabet and more — every adventure has a page like this one.
