Պետրոս Յովհաննիսեան2025-10-032025-10-031997Յովհաննիսեան, Պ., «Նիկողայոս Ադոնցը Հայոց եկեղեցու պատմութեան պատմաբան», «Հայկազեան հայագիտական հանդէս», 1997, Պէյրութ, էջ 263-286https://haigrepository.haigazian.edu.lb/handle/123456789/774The renouned Armenian Byzantologist, Nikoghayos Adontz, is the author of more than a dozen of books and studies all dealing with the history of Armenia and Armenians. All through his life (1871-1942) he taught in various western universities and worked and published on a wide range of Armenian life and history past and present. Yet few of his readers realized how deeply he was involved in church history and what a formidable Armenian Church historian he was. In spite of the fact that he published quite a large number of works, he left behind a considerable amount of unpublished manuscripts, which are now deposited in the archives of the Hamazgayin Cultural Association, Beirut, Lebanon. Even a scanty reading of this material will prove the existence of works which will open to light the various facts of the Armenian Church history, which, it seems, fell into the scope of the great historian's interests. Of these works mention must be made of the Tonatsouyts (Calendar of Religious Feasts, in Armenian, two different copies of 500 and 600 pages each), Tjashots (Lectionary, in Armenian, 150 pages), Grigor Anavarzetsou Tonatsouytse (The Calendar of Religious Feasts of Grigor of Anavarza, in Armenian, 50 pages), Patkeri Khendire Hayots Yekeghetsou Mech (The Question of Iconography in the Armenian Church, in Armenian, 65 pages), Asora-Parskakan Kristoneakan Yekeghetsou Astitjanakargoutoune (The Religious echeloning system in the Assyro-Persian Christian Church, in Russian, 20 pages), Kristonyaneri Halatzanknere Sasanian Parskastanoum V-VI Dareroum (The Persecution of the Christians in Sassanid Persia in the V-VI Centuries, in Russian, 30 pages), Mee Ech Katoghikosoutian Merdzavor Antsyalits (A Page of the Recent Past of the Armenian Catholicosate, in Armenian, 17 pages), and some 150 pages of studies all pertaining to the Armenian Tjashots. Besides this unpublished material, Adontz has published quite a large number of studies in Armenian, French and Russian and all dealing with the History of the Armenian Church. Of all the unpublished material "A page of the recent past of the Armenian Catholicosate must be pinpointed not only as the most complete study among the various manuscripts, but rather because it sheds new light on one of the crucial problems the Armenian church ever laced. The Polojenye imposed by the Tsarist authorities on the Armenian Church and nation in 1836 was never accepted and appreciated willingly. It was rather considered a tool at the hands of the imperial authorities easily to rule the newly occupied and annexed Eastern Armenia and subdue to servility the Armenian people and their church. Since then the Polojenye has remained an unsolved question for all those who have tackled with it within the scope of the history of Eastern Armenia. As many others, Nikoghayos Adontz too has probed the problem of the Polojenye and has reached to the conclusion that it not only clearly defined the rights and duties of the Armenian Church but also regulated the functioning of the church organs, the election of the Catholicos, the Supreme Head of the Armenian Church, it created a synod to help the Catholicos carry on his duties, organized a hierarchical system in the administration of the church itself, made room for the creation of educational centralized system and brought forth various councils all dependent on the ministry of education of the Russian Empire, according to Adontz, the new statute, instead of curtailing and curbing the traditions and rights of the Armenian Church and its head, rather filled the gaps in the organizational system. But, as he put it "This reforming of the Armenian Church did, indeed, give rise to complaints and grievances". By publishing the manuscript of Adontz and by making use of an abundant annotation added to the article, Hovhannisian helps the reader to have a new approach and better understand the Polojenye, giving to it new dimensions and light, and, moreover, thus rescuing from definite oblivion one of the important studies of the Armenian historian, the "Mee Ech Katoghikosoutian Merdzavor Antsyalits"