The Armenian Rite

The Armenian Catholic website has a short history on the development of the Armenian rite, explaining how it originally copied the Church of Jerusalem and then developed into its own rite in the following centuries.

The neighboring peoples' churches had already organized their adoration rules until Armenia became officially a Christian country in 301 due to The Illuminator and the Armenian church was constructed. The apostles Tatyos and Partoghomios did not let any trace of rite in our literature in Armenia. Before The Illuminator, when Christianity entered Armenia, due to the preachers of the Greek and Syriac churches, they brought with them to Armenia the adoration invented by their churches with the preaching of the Christian religion. This could not be different, because the Armenian Christianity and the Armenian church were going to be organized after three centuries from the Syriac and the Greek ones, while these two churches were going to have time to be organized before us, to progress, to have exceptional patriarchs and saints, who due to their help those churches improved and progressed, while we were still suffering from the paganism.

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