Mechitarist
| Abbreviation | C.M.V. |
|---|---|
| Founded | 8 September 1717 |
| Founder | Mekhitar of Sebaste |
| Type | monastic order |
| Website | www |
The Mechitarists (Armenian: Մխիթարեաններ, also spelled Mekhitarists) are a congregation of Benedictine monks of the Armenian Catholic Church founded in 1717 by Abbot Mekhitar of Sebaste. They are best known for their series of scholarly publications of ancient Armenian versions of otherwise lost ancient Greek texts and their research on classical and modern Armenian language.
The congregation was long divided into two branches, with the respective motherhouses being in Venice and Vienna. In July 2000 they united to form one institute.
Their eponymous founder, Mekhitar of Sebaste, was born at Sebastia in Armenia, then part of the Ottoman Empire, in 1676. He entered a monastery, but was concerned about the level of culture and education in Armenia under Turkish rule at that period, and sought to do something about it. Contacts with Western missionaries led him to become interested in translating material from the West into Armenian and setting up a religious order to facilitate education.
Mekhitar set out for Rome in 1695 to make his ecclesiastical studies there, but he was compelled by illness to abandon the journey and return to Armenia. In 1696 he was ordained a priest and for four years worked among his people.
In 1700 Mekhitar went to Istanbul and began to gather disciples around him. Mechitar formally joined the Latin Church, and in 1701, with sixteen companions, he formed a religious institute of which he became the superior. They encountered the opposition of other Armenians and were compelled to move to the Morea (Peloponnese), at that time Venetian territory, where they built a monastery in 1706. In its inception the order was looked upon merely as an attempted reform of Eastern monachism. Filippo Bonanni, S.J., writes at Rome, in 1712 when the order received its approval, of the arrival of Elias Martyr and Joannes Simon, two Armenian monks sent by Mechitar to Pope Clement XI to offer the most humble subjection of himself and convent (Ut ei se cum suis religiosis humillime subjiceret). There is no mention, at the moment, of the Benedictine Rule. The monks, such as St. Anthony instituted in Egypt (quos St. Antonius in Aegypto instituerat), have begun a foundation in Modon with Mechitar (Mochtàr) as abbot.
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