33 Facts About Mesrop Mashtots

Mesrop Mashtots was an Armenian linguist, composer, theologian, statesman, and hymnologist.

Mesrop Mashtots is venerated as a saint in the Armenian Apostolic Church.

Mesrop Mashtots is best known for inventing the Armenian alphabet c AD, which was a fundamental step in strengthening Armenian national identity.

Mesrop Mashtots is considered to be the creator of the Caucasian Albanian and, possibly, the Georgian script, though it is disputed.

The chief sources for the life and work of Mashtots are Koriun, Ghazar Parpetsi, and Movses Khorenatsi.

The oldest extant manuscript of Koriun's Life of Mesrop Mashtots has been dated to the 12th century.

Some scholars, including Malachia Ormanian, maintain that Mashtots was his birth name, while Mesrop was his ecclesiastical name by which he was ordained.

The date of birth of Mesrop Mashtots is not well-established, but recent scholarship accepts 361.

Besides his native Armenian, Mesrop Mashtots knew Greek, Persian, and Syriac.

In late 380s Mesrop Mashtots moved to Vagharshapat, Armenia's capital, where he began a career at the court of King Khosrov III.

Mesrop Mashtots was initially royal chancellor, then moved on to serve in the military after receiving training.

In c 394 Mashtots became a clergyman and was ordained as a monk and lived in a monastery, in Goghtn.

Mesrop Mashtots then gathered a group of 40 disciples and began missionary work among Armenians, many of whom were still pagan.

Mesrop Mashtots begin his first mission in Goghtn around 395.

Mesrop Mashtots successfully spread Christianity in the area and expelled the pagans.

Koryun, his pupil and biographer, writes that Mesrop Mashtots received a good education and was versed in the Greek and Persian languages.

In 394, with the blessing of Sahak Part'ev, Mesrop Mashtots set out on a proselytizing mission.

Mesrop Mashtots himself taught at the Amaras monastery of the Armenian province of Artsakh.

Mesrop Mashtots sent some of his numerous disciples to Edessa, Constantinople, Athens, Antioch, Alexandria, and other centers of learning, to study the Greek language and bring back the masterpieces of Greek literature.

Mesrop Mashtots survived his friend and master by only six months.

Armenians probably had an alphabet of their own, as historical writers reference an "Armenian alphabet" before Mesrop Mashtots, but used Greek, Persian, and Syriac scripts to translate Christian texts, none of which was well suited for representing the many complex sounds of their native tongue.

Mesrop Mashtots was assisted in inventing an Armenian writing system by Sahak and Vramshapuh.

Mesrop Mashtots consulted Daniel, a bishop of Mesopotamia, and Rufinus, a monk of Samosata, on the matter and created an alphabet of thirty-six letters; two more were added in the twelfth century.

Medieval Armenian sources claim that Mesrop Mashtots invented the Georgian and Caucasian Albanian alphabets around the same time.

Hakob Manandian argued in a 1940 pamphlet that although the invention of the Armenian alphabet by Mesrop Mashtots was primarily aimed at spreading Christianity, in the long-run it was politically significant.

Mesrop Mashtots is a saint of the Armenian Apostolic and Armenian Catholic churches.

Mesrop Mashtots is sometimes referred to by Armenian churchmen as "The Saint of Oshakan".

The Order of St Mesrop Mashtots, awarded for "outstanding achievements" in science, education, healthcare, and culture, was established by the Armenian government in 1993.

The St Sahak-St Mesrop Mashtots award was established by the Armenian Church in 1978.

Stepanos Nersissian's 1882 painting of Mesrop Mashtots, commissioned by a wealthy Armenian from Elisabethpol, is considered the most widely recognized artistic depiction of Mesrop Mashtots.

In 1981 a tapestry titled The Armenian Alphabet, where Mesrop Mashtots is the central figure, was completed by French weavers based on a painting by Grigor Khanjyan.

The most recognizable statue of Mesrop Mashtots, depicted with his disciple and biographer Koriun, is located in front of the Matenadaran and was erected by Ghukas Chubaryan in 1962.

Statues, busts and sculptures of Mesrop Mashtots have been erected in the Armenian diaspora, including in historical communities such as at the seminary in Jerusalem's Armenian Quarter, the library of the Vank Cathedral in New Julfa, Isfahan, Iran, the Melkonian Educational Institute in Nicosia, Cyprus and in newly-established communities, such as on the Armenian Cathedral of Moscow and in Alfortville, Paris.