SAINT SATAN

[Arpa]

ՍՈՒՐԲ ՍԱՏԱՆԱՅ

SAINT SATAN

HOLY HELL?

 

See what I had said some time ago. One of many times;

Post #13 here;

http://hyeforum.com/index.php?showtopic=6660&st=0

 

Did Armenians actually engage in missionary work?

There may be as many versions of the "history of the Armenian Church" as there are seminarians. It seem like it is a prerogative of the seminaries to have their students write their version of history. Yet, as many versions may exist none of these have any mention of Armenian Missionaries )most, if not all "history of the Armenian Church write about our saints, no mention of our sinners). If this were the case we would have the boldest headlines emphasizing this fact. It is said that Mesrop did actually try to spread the "word" in the neighborhood. The only evidence of this may be our activity in Caucasian Albania (Aghvan). Yes, there is mention of diocese in that region.

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And now let’s see what our friend Eddie says . As always an excellent article. I will quote only the part relevant to this theme. Please read the entire article to see that it is not all doom and gloom, see also the bright and glorious side of it all, as how they saved and preserved our history and heritage.

 

http://groong.usc.edu/news/msg348553.html

 

 

II. The darker side of the stars Brilliant as their legacy shines today Gladzor and Datev were nevertheless feudal Church estates. Datev's priests owned 47 villages along with their serfs as well as rights to raises taxes on a further 677. The culture and science they produced had no ambition to save peasant souls or to bequeath riches to the future. Its sole purpose was to safeguard the Church's enormous privilege and power and enable its elites to enjoy these to the full. The peasant in all this was just the means to the Church elite's ends. The cost of what survives of the Church's glory days was paid for by the Armenian peasantry in unimaginable measures of poverty, hunger, pain and misery. It was the common people who in addition to paying Church taxes and tithes that left them and their families hungry, had to build the elite's monasteries and castles, their bridges and their roads. It was the peasant that had to till the soil and produce the food served to prince and bishop. To this peasantry, what we today consider marvels of our cultural inheritance must have appeared understandably in a very indifferent light. Of what import after all are beautifully illuminated manuscripts when the last morsel of your child's food is snatched by the priest in the form of a tax demand backed by threats of eternal hell fire. Living in blood and mire, always on the edge of death all the treasures of Armenian architecture, miniature paintings and music meant little or nothing to the peasant. It was a legacy that did not belong to them but to the high and the haughty. It requires little imagination to grasp popular contempt and protest registered in expansively in folklore and modern literature in which the clergy appear as `free eating' parasites or as ruthless collectors of tithes. Western Armenian Dikran Chyoguryan's fine novel `The Monastery' refers to an 'exploitative' and 'heartless' clergy whose `sole concern is `to fatten themselves on the monastery's chickens, eggs and butter' no doubt produced by hungry serfs. In eastern Armenian Hovanness Toumanian's poem `The Song of the Ploughman, the head of the family already suffering a `hand that does not function' and `strength that is diminished' must yet drive himself harder in order to escape not just `the usurer (who) will come to beat us' but `the priest (who) if unpaid after his blessing, will rage and curse.' But it is perhaps Yeghishe Charents in his terribly misunderstood `On the Highways of History' who captures best and puts in proper perspective the dialectic of peasant sensibility and the legacy of elite culture. Charents's dismissal of the entire legacy of Armenian history was deemed `nihilistic' even in Soviet times for allegedly failing to acknowledge `progressive elements' in feudal society. Charents was not however engaged in the construction of teleological narratives that so blighted a great deal of Soviet era historiography. Instead, with an angry passion and a vivid imagination he resurrects the body and soul of the medieval peasant. He brings this peasant alive into his own times and bonding him with his contemporary brothers and sisters gives their voice unmistakeable authority. Classical Armenian histories, written primarily by Churchmen uphold Charents's judgement that for the people, for the peasantry, Armenian feudal history did indeed represent `slavery, ashes, oblivion and death'. Eleventh century Lazdivertzi's dramatic account of the collapse of the Bagratouni dynasty is a singular instance. Classical historians provide ample evidence for Charents to show that the elites did indeed `waste away the treasure we inherited' and having `put out for sale' the people's `last anchors' of hope fled to `foreign shores' there to build `mansions and castles'. The historical record shows that prince and priest did indeed `sow nothing but poverty of spirit', nothing `but turmoil and beggary' for the mass of the peasantry that was left behind to suffer `brutal tyranny', `live in the deep darkness' with freedom only to `dream of the sun'. But even as Charents opens up the sensibilities of living, feeling, suffering, dreaming common people he was certainly no vulgar `nihilist'. He neither denied nor rejected the culture and civilisation produced in the past. Another poem, `To the Miniature Painter', evokes images of medieval manuscripts `fashioned often with unerring skill' and touched with the `grandeur of resurrection'. To underline historical truth however he also notes that those who produced these works were often `serfs', albeit `genius serfs' labouring till `their backs buckled with pain'. Charents understood well that each generation must build on the legacy of earlier ones, on the legacy left among others by such genius serfs. In the unimaginably beautiful `To the Builders of Cities' he affirms that a solid present must stand upon past accomplishments. He advises builders to `mix into `the stone of the city walls' the `thousand year old ashes' of `those who sleep for ever' and to `place their marble coffin' at `the city's golden gate': `For the ashes of the dead make the strongest cement The strongest and most enduring binding And it is with that that the land becomes land, The people, a people, the future a future...'

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Does anyone know which Toumanian and Charents works mentioned above are?

We will get back about the origin and etymology of “saint/սուրբ-satan/սատանայ”.