Mesrob z Kaffy († 1624) – ostatni przedunijny arcybiskup „wszystkich Ormian obojga płci, mieszkających we Lwowie, Kijowie, Łucku i Zamościu”

Abstract

MESROP OF KAFFA († 1624). THE LAST PRE-UNION ARCHBISHOP OF “ALL ARMENIANS OF BOTH GENDERS, LIVING IN LVIV, KIEV, LUTSK AND ZAMOŚĆ”

Mesrop from Kaffa (Kaffatsi), the last pre-Union archbishop of Lviv before the union of the Armenian Church in Poland with the Holy See, came from the Principality of Moldavia. He was born in a mixed Armenian-Ruthenian family. As a child, he was sent to the vardapet Hovhannes Aintabetsi in Sebastia to receive education. According to his vardapet command, he left for Crimea before finishing studies, where he was probably ordained a monk. For this reason, he later referred to himself as “from Kaffa” – Kafatsi, Kafali (1605). In Crimea, he arbitrarily accepted the title of a master (rabbuni) and a vardapet afterwards. In the search of Armenian manuscripts, he travelled to eastern Armenia (Ejmiatsin, Khor Virap, Saghmosavank, Sanahin and Haghpat). In 1607, he was in Jassy and in 1608 in Suceava, thence he moved in 1610 to Lwów, where in 1611 he was employed as a preacher- vardapet in the Armenian cathedral. In 1613, he began a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. On the way back (about 1616) in Aleppo, he was already formally appointed as a vardapet by his former teacher Hovhannes Aintabetsi the catholicos of Cilicia, who also ordained him as a bishop of Poland and Moldavia. In 1617, he was recorded in Lwów as a local archbishop. In 1621, during the Polish-Turkish war, he was in the monastery of Saint Auxentius in Suceava. On 4 March 1623, the Polish king Sigismund III Vasa, during the Warsaw Seym approved him as the archbishop of Lwów. Mesrop was a benefactor of the Armenian church of Saint Nicholas in Kamieniec Podolski where he founded an altar dedicated to Saint Gregory the Illuminator. He also took care of churches in Lwów and Zamość. He died 12 May 1624 in Zamość and was buried there. The article includes three supplements in Polish translation: the royal confirmation of the archbishop Mesrop by Sigismund III from 1623, written in Latin; the will of the archbishop Mesrop made on 9 May 1624 in Zamość in Kipchak-Armenian ethnolect, according to the transcription of Edward Tryjarski, and an extract of the Armenian chronicle by Grigor Daranaghtsi, concerning the archbishop Mesrop.