The Organization of the Church Structure in the Armenian Provinces of Byzantium Occupied by Arab Muslims in the second half 7th–8th Centuries

Abstract

The aim of this article is to restore the church structure in the western lands of Greater Armenia and the whole Lesser Armenia, which, on the eve of the conquests of the Arab Muslims, being part of the Byzantine Empire, belonged either to the Orthodox Patriarchates of Constantinople and Antioch, or to the Armenian Catholicosate of Dwin, and after the start of their conquests they passed in the second half of the 7th c. to the Caliphate. According to calculations by the author, in the early 8th c. there were formed in the lands of the former Armenian provinces of Byzantium three major eparchies of the Syrian Jacobite Church with its see in Antioch, which, like the Armenian Church, firmly adhered to the non-Chalcedonian position and came under the Arabs. Three more Syrian church units were formed in the Armenian lands at the end of the same century. Four of the six Jacobite eparchies were occupied the former canonical territories of the Orthodox Church with Constantinople and Antioch as their sees and two more—the canonical territories of the Armenian Catholicosate in regions of Arzan and Xlat‘.