Pay special attention to “քահանայապետ”. We will see why.
Please don’t mind me. I am just talking to myself, and in the process teaching myself. and learning.
(In another thread about “Noah’s Ark” I questioned whether Noah was Christian, just as Julius Caesar. We will see.)
We often hear that the Pope is called a Pontiff. Just as often in the English versions the Armenian Catholicos is referred to as “pontiff”.
Do we know what it means?
One dictionary says it is pope/պապ /քահանայապետ.. Yes ”pope”is a variation of “papa/պապա/father/papaz”, as in “papazian”.
Or as sometimes belote players will call this as “papaz”
http://allaboutcards...ing-hearts4.png
As to the definition and etymology of “Վեահափառ/vehaparr”, perhaps another subject, there is very little to go about except when Ajarian mentions it under the topic of “Վեհ/veh”, high, exalted, heavenly…and in combination with “փառ/parr”, glory.
“Pontifex Maximus=supreme bridge maker/builder”, from the Latin “pont=bridge” and “fex=make”.
Who knows this French ditty? We will skip what “pond“ means in the English;
http://www.virtouris...imatges/020.jpg
----Sur le pont d’Avignon
L'on y danse, l'on y danse
Sur le pont d’Avignon
L'on y danse tout en rond
On the bridge of Avignon
We all dance there, we all dance there
On the bridge of Avignon
We all dance there in a ring
At the height of the glory of the Roman Empire there was one institution over and above the Senate and the emperor, it was the office of the Pontifex Maximus, the chief priest of the Temple. We read that Julius Caesar, after he virtually conquered all of the known world had only one unfinished ambition left, to be the Pontifex Maximus, the supreme priest, over and above the emperor. That may have been the reason for his demise by the hand of his own son Brutus.
Is the Catholicos/pontiff over and above the “emperor” Sargisian/Kocharian/TerPetrosian?
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pontiff -a former title of the pagan high priest at Rome, later used of popes and occasionally of other bishops, and now confined exclusively to the pope
[from French pontife, from Latin pontifex]
a. The pope.
b. A bishop.
2. A pontifex.
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The Pontifex Maximus (Latin, literally: "greatest bridge-maker" was the high priest of the College of Pontiffs (Collegium Pontificum) in ancient Rome. This was the most important position in the ancient Roman religion, open only to patricians until 254 BC, when a plebeian first occupied this post. A distinctly religious office under the early Roman Republic, it gradually became politicized until, beginning with Augustus, it was subsumed into the Imperial office. Its last use with reference to the emperors is in inscriptions of Gratian[1] (reigned 375–383) who, however, then decided to omit the words "pontifex maximus" from his title.[2][3]
The word "pontifex" later became a term used for Christian bishops,[4] including the Bishop of Rome,[5] and the title of "Pontifex Maximus" was applied within the Roman Catholic Church to the Pope as its chief bishop. It is not included in the Pope's official titles,[6] but appears on buildings, monuments and coins of popes of Renaissance and modern times
Edited by Arpa, 15 December 2010 - 10:17 AM.