Pope Francis today arrived in Armenia’s capital Yerevan. This is visit to the first country adopting Christianity as a state religion.
Dadivank is an Armenian monastery in Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. It was built between the 9th and 13th century. Dadivank is a witness of the origin of these lands...
In Grabar, the Old Armenian language, կ stood for a sound that conformed to the Russian [к]. Of the two New Armenian literary languages, only the Eastern Armenian inherited this sound, while in the Western Armenian կ has retained its traditional way of writing.
According to one of the existing versions, letter Ծ derives from the Armenian letter Զ [z]. Supporters of another version believe that the graphic form of Ծ originates in letter of the Syriac еstrangelo – the oldest of all varieties of the Syriac script.
The mystic poet Grigor Narekatsi (X century) made letter Ի the symbol of grief and sins. Most of his “Book of Lamentations”, which consists of 95 chapters, is written in free verse.
Sanctity of Է is intensified by the fact that its numerical value is seven. This sacral number, considered as divine, is repeatedlyused in the Bible: seven sacraments, seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, seven angels standing in the presence of God, seven thrones, seven seals.
The numerical value of letter Զ is six; therefore it was correlated with the sixth day of creation of the world, when the God created man in His image. In the alphabetic acrostic written by Mashtots, Զ stands for the word Զօրաւոր (mighty).