Armenia is honored as the first nation to embrace Christianity as its official faith, and a Pope has signed with her Catholicos that we share one faith in Christ. So what still stands between Etchmiadzin and the chair of St. Peter?
Short answer: On the person of Christ, very little. In 1996 Pope St. John Paul II and Catholicos Karekin I confessed together that Christ is "Perfect God as to His divinity, perfect man as to His humanity." What still divides the Armenian Apostolic Church from the Catholic Church is communion with St. Peter's successor, the Bishop of Rome, and everything that follows from it: the councils after Ephesus, and the Pope's office as visible head of the one Church. Christ prayed "that they may all be one," built His Church on St. Peter, and charged him to "strengthen your brothers." The Catholic Church invites Armenians into that full communion, and an Armenian loses nothing of his liturgy or heritage by entering it.
Key verses on unity and St. Peter
- "so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you" (John 17:21)
- "you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church" (Matthew 16:18)
- "I have prayed that your own faith may not fail; and once you have turned back, you must strengthen your brothers" (Luke 22:32)
- "Feed my sheep" (John 21:17)
- "there will be one flock, one shepherd" (John 10:16)
Scripture quotations are from the New American Bible, Revised Edition (NABRE), © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, D.C. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
What the Armenian Apostolic Church Believes
The Armenian Church traces her faith to the apostles themselves. The Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin says she was "founded directly as a result of the preaching of two apostles of the Lord," St. Thaddeus and St. Bartholomew, and that "In 301, Armenia became the first state to declare Christianity as the state religion," through the preaching of St. Gregory the Illuminator and the proclamation of King Trdat III. (CNEWA places the conversion "at the beginning of the 4th century"; 301 is the traditional date.) The Mother See describes the Catholicos as "the Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians" and "the spiritual leader of all Armenians" (Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin). With the Coptic, Syriac, Ethiopian, Eritrean, and Malankara Churches, she belongs to the Oriental Orthodox family.
On the councils, the Armenian Church's Pontifical Legation in Western Europe states: "The Armenian Church accepts the first three ecumenical councils summoned at Nicaea, Constantinople, and Ephesus." And: "In the 5th century the Armenian Church did not accept the Council of Chalcedon in 451." Then: "In 506 at the Dvin Council, the Armenian Church formulated an official response to Chalcedon defending its Christology" (Armenian Church, Western Europe). No Armenian bishop attended Chalcedon, and the Armenian Church "was more concerned with countering the nestorianizing tendencies of the neighboring church" in Persia (CNEWA). Armenians feared Chalcedon divided Christ; they never doubted His humanity.
On the papacy, the Armenian position is not hostility but a different model of unity. Presenting the Vatican study document The Bishop of Rome in 2024, Archbishop Khajag Barsamian, the Armenian Church's representative to the Holy See, welcomed the document and affirmed that "the Pope is called to serve the communion of Churches." He also noted that in the early Church "expressions of communion were not primarily juridical," recalled that the official theological dialogues hold that "the present relationship of the Eastern Catholic Churches with Rome cannot be considered a model for future communion," and hoped for "a model not of jurisdiction but of communion" (Barsamian, June 13, 2024). That is a serious and charitable Armenian case, open to a role for Rome but not to jurisdiction, and we take it seriously below.
What Catholics Actually Teach
First, what we share, and it is a great deal. On December 13, 1996, Pope St. John Paul II and Catholicos Karekin I confessed Christ "Perfect God as to His divinity, perfect man as to His humanity," and that "His divinity is united to His humanity in the Person of the Only-begotten Son of God, in a union which is real, perfect, without confusion, without alteration, without division, without any form of separation." They recognized that dialogue had "dispelled many misunderstandings inherited from the controversies and dissensions of the past," and they spoke of "this common faith in Jesus Christ and in the same succession of apostolic ministry" (Common Declaration, 1996).
On September 27, 2001, at Holy Etchmiadzin, Pope St. John Paul II and Catholicos Karekin II kept the 1700th anniversary of Christian Armenia. They remembered "with reverence, gratitude and love the great confessor of our Lord Jesus Christ, Saint Gregory the Illuminator," and recalled "the extermination of a million and a half Armenian Christians, in what is generally referred to as the first genocide of the twentieth century," adding that many among them "were certainly confessors and martyrs for the name of Christ." They pledged "to pray and work to hasten the day of communion among all the members of Christ's faithful flock" (Common Declaration, 2001). In 2015 Pope Francis said, "we proclaim Saint Gregory of Narek a Doctor of the Church" (Message to Armenians, 2015), an Armenian monk of the tenth century now teaching the whole Catholic Church.
The Catholic Church teaches that the Eastern Churches not in full communion with her "possess true sacraments, above all - by apostolic succession - the priesthood and the Eucharist" (CCC 1399), and that "With the Orthodox Churches, this communion is so profound that it lacks little to attain the fullness that would permit a common celebration of the Lord's Eucharist" (CCC 838).
But "lacks little" is not "lacks nothing." The 1996 declaration itself speaks of "the hope for and commitment to recovery of full communion between them." Full communion has not yet been recovered. And the Catholic Church is precise about where the fullness is: the one Church of Christ "subsists in (subsistit in) the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the bishops in communion with him," for "it is through Christ's Catholic Church alone, which is the universal help toward salvation, that the fullness of the means of salvation can be obtained" (CCC 816). The real gifts the Armenian Church holds "are in themselves calls to 'Catholic unity'" (CCC 819).
So what divides us now? Not the Incarnation, not the sacraments, not the Theotokos. It is the office Christ gave St. Peter. The Catholic Church teaches that the Pope "is the perpetual and visible source and foundation of the unity both of the bishops and of the whole company of the faithful," and that "by reason of his office as Vicar of Christ" he has "full, supreme, and universal power over the whole Church" (CCC 882). From that follows the question of Chalcedon and the later councils, which the Catholic Church holds as ecumenical.
What Catholics do not teach:
- That Armenians are heretics about Christ. The 1996 declaration confesses one faith in Him.
- That Armenians must become Latin. The Second Vatican Council taught that "each individual Church or Rite should retain its traditions whole and entire," that the Churches "are consequently of equal dignity, so that none of them is superior to the others as regards rite," and that Eastern Catholics "can and should always preserve their legitimate liturgical rite and their established way of life" (Orientalium Ecclesiarum 2, 3, 6).
- That the Armenian sacraments are invalid. They are true sacraments (CCC 1399), but they are celebrated apart from St. Peter's successor.
It all points to Christ. The papacy is not a rival to Jesus Christ, the one Shepherd. The Pope holds his office "by reason of his office as Vicar of Christ" (CCC 882): he is a steward of Another's house, keeping the flock one so that "the world may believe" in the Son the Father sent (John 17:21). Unity with St. Peter's successor is, in the end, obedience to Christ's own prayer.
The Biblical Case
1. Christ wills one visible flock
On the night before He died, Jesus prayed not only for the Twelve "but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me" (John 17:20–21). A unity the world can see is a visible unity. Earlier He said, "there will be one flock, one shepherd" (John 10:16). St. Paul pleaded "that there be no divisions among you" and asked, "Is Christ divided?" (1 Corinthians 1:10, 13). Some fifteen centuries of separation are not what Christ prayed for.
2. Christ built His Church on one man
"And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 16:18–19). The keys echo the royal steward of Isaiah: "I will place the key of the House of David on his shoulder; what he opens, no one will shut, what he shuts, no one will open" (Isaiah 22:22). That is an office, and offices have successors; a promise that outlives St. Peter needs a rock that outlives him too. (Full case: Is the Papacy in the Bible?)
3. Christ gave St. Peter a charge over his brothers
At the Last Supper Jesus warned, "Simon, Simon, behold Satan has demanded to sift all of you like wheat, but I have prayed that your own faith may not fail; and once you have turned back, you must strengthen your brothers" (Luke 22:31–32). The danger is to "all of you"; the prayer and the charge are for one. After the Resurrection the risen Lord asked St. Peter three times, "Simon, son of John, do you love me?" and three times entrusted him with the flock: "Feed my lambs," "Tend my sheep," "Feed my sheep" (John 21:15–17). Not "some" sheep, and not "the Latin sheep." Christ's flock. Even St. Paul, called directly by the risen Christ, "went up to Jerusalem to confer with Cephas and remained with him for fifteen days" (Galatians 1:18).
4. Unity with St. Peter does not erase a people's gifts
Scripture's picture of the one Church is "one body and one Spirit," "one Lord, one faith, one baptism" (Ephesians 4:4–5), and that one body has many members. History proves it can be lived. Crusaders passing through Cilicia made contact with the Armenian Church in the 12th century, and an alliance with the Armenian king "contributed to the establishment of a union between the two churches in Cilicia in 1198." That union "was not accepted by Armenians outside Cilicia" and ended when the kingdom fell in 1375. At the Council of Florence, the decree Exultate Deo (1439) "provided the doctrinal basis for the establishment of an Armenian Catholic church much later." In 1742 "Pope Benedict XIV confirmed a former Armenian Apostolic bishop, Abraham Ardzivian (1679-1749)," as Armenian Catholic Patriarch of Cilicia (CNEWA, The Armenian Catholic Church).
That Church still exists, with its own patriarch, its own bishops, its Armenian rite, and its liturgical language, Old Armenian (Pro Oriente). According to Pro Oriente, the Catholic Mechitarist order, founded in 1701 by Mechitar of Sebaste, plays "an important role in preserving the cultural and ecclesiastical heritage of the Armenians." Armenian Catholics also suffered at the end of World War I, a persecution that "decimated the Armenian Catholic community" in Turkey (CNEWA). An Armenian in full communion with Rome still prays the Armenian liturgy and honors St. Gregory the Illuminator and remembers the Armenian victims of 1915. What he gains is communion with St. Peter's successor.
Objections Answered
(a) "The Armenian Church is apostolic in her own right. She needs no one in Rome."
At its strongest: The Armenian Church was founded by two apostles and kept the faith through Persian wars, the genocide of 1915, and Soviet persecution under her own Catholicoi. Why should a Church of apostles submit to another apostle's see?
Answer: Every Catholic should honor that witness. But the question is not whether the Armenian Church is apostolic. It is whether Christ built His Church on one apostle in a unique way. He did: "upon this rock I will build my church" (Matthew 16:18); "strengthen your brothers" (Luke 22:32); "Feed my sheep" (John 21:17). St. Thaddeus and St. Bartholomew were among those brothers. The Council of Nicaea, which the Armenian Church receives, modeled Alexandria's authority on Rome's: "since the like is customary for the Bishop of Rome also" (canon 6). Apostolic origin is the reason to seek communion with St. Peter, not a reason to stand apart from him.
(b) "The first millennium knew a communion of Churches, not a juridical papacy."
At its strongest: Archbishop Barsamian notes that early "expressions of communion were not primarily juridical" and asks for "a model not of jurisdiction but of communion." Why accept the Western, post-schism shape of the office?
Answer: The exercise of the primacy has taken different forms, and its form can be discussed. But the councils the Armenian Church herself receives show more than honor. At Ephesus (431), with St. Cyril presiding, the bishops deposed Nestorius "Compelled thereto by the canons and by the letter" of "our most holy father and fellow-servant Cœlestine, the Roman bishop," and the papal legate declared that St. Peter "down even to today and forever both lives and judges in his successors" (Ephesus, Sessions I and III). Around 341 Pope St. Julius I rebuked Eastern bishops who had judged St. Athanasius: "Are you ignorant that the custom has been for word to be written first to us, and then for a just decision to be passed from this place?" (Athanasius, Apologia Contra Arianos 35). Honor does not judge bishops; authority does, and keys that open and shut (Isaiah 22:22) describe authority, not courtesy.
(c) "Eastern Catholic Churches are not a model for unity. They were carved out of our Church."
At its strongest: Barsamian, citing the official theological dialogues, notes that "the present relationship of the Eastern Catholic Churches with Rome cannot be considered a model for future communion." The Armenian Catholic patriarchate began with a former Armenian Apostolic bishop and the faithful who followed him into union with Rome. To many Armenians that looks like division, not unity.
Answer: We concede what is true, and the Catholic Church herself takes part in those dialogues: the way some Eastern Catholic Churches came into being caused real pain, and the Catholic Church does not seek unity by absorbing one Church into another. But the Armenian Catholic Church answers a question every Armenian may ask: "If I enter full communion with St. Peter's successor, must I stop being Armenian?" Her patriarch, her Armenian rite, and her martyrs answer: no. The Council teaches that a separated Eastern Christian who enters Catholic unity is asked for "no more" than "what a bare profession of the Catholic faith demands" (Orientalium Ecclesiarum 25), and that Eastern Catholic Churches "have a special duty of promoting the unity of all Christians" (24). Whatever form a future reunion takes, the faith it requires will include St. Peter's office.
(d) "We already confess the same Christ. Isn't that enough?"
At its strongest: In 2016 Pope Francis and Catholicos Karekin II wrote that "what unites us is much more than what divides us" (Common Declaration, 2016). Why insist on more?
Answer: Because Christ insisted on more. He did not pray that His disciples would hold similar Christologies; He prayed "that they may all be one" (John 17:21). The same 2016 declaration names "continuing divisions among Christians" and sets "sharing full communion" as the goal. Shared faith in Christ is the foundation. It is not yet the house.
The Early Church Agrees
- St. Ignatius of Antioch (Letter to the Romans, greeting and 3, c. AD 107–110) greets the Roman church as the one "which presides over love," and adds, "You have never envied any one; you have taught others" (newadvent.org).
- St. Irenaeus of Lyons (Against Heresies 3.3.2, c. AD 180), on "the very great, the very ancient, and universally known Church founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul": "For it is a matter of necessity that every Church should agree with this Church, on account of its preeminent authority" (newadvent.org).
- St. Cyprian of Carthage (On the Unity of the Church 4, c. AD 251): though Christ gave all the apostles "an equal power," "yet, that He might set forth unity, He arranged by His authority the origin of that unity, as beginning from one." And: "Does he who does not hold this unity of the Church think that he holds the faith?" (newadvent.org).
- Council of Nicaea (AD 325), canon 6, received by the Armenian Church: "Let the ancient customs in Egypt, Libya and Pentapolis prevail, that the Bishop of Alexandria have jurisdiction in all these, since the like is customary for the Bishop of Rome also" (newadvent.org).
- Council of Ephesus (AD 431), received by the Armenian Church, where the papal legate Philip declared that "the holy and most blessed Peter, prince (ἔξαρχος) and head of the Apostles, pillar of the faith, and foundation (θεμέλιος) of the Catholic Church, received the keys of the kingdom from our Lord Jesus Christ" (Session III, newadvent.org).
Conclusion
The Armenian Apostolic Church and the Catholic Church confess one Lord Jesus Christ, perfect God and perfect man, and share true sacraments, the apostolic succession, and a vast company of martyrs. What still divides them is the one thing Christ Himself placed at the center of His Church's unity: St. Peter and his successor. That question is written in Matthew 16, Luke 22, and John 21, and was honored at Nicaea and Ephesus, councils the Armenian Church holds dear.
If you are Armenian, the Catholic Church does not ask you to forget St. Gregory of Narek or the victims of 1915, or to trade the Armenian liturgy for a Latin one. The Armenian Catholic Church shows you can stand in full communion with St. Peter's successor and remain wholly Armenian.
Come home. The Church that St. Gregory the Illuminator served is honored, and the Armenian heritage is kept whole, in the Catholic Church. You already possess true sacraments and much of the apostolic faith, in "a certain, although imperfect, communion with the Catholic Church" (CCC 838). Those gifts draw their power "from the fullness of grace and truth that Christ has entrusted to the Catholic Church" and "are in themselves calls to 'Catholic unity'" (CCC 819). The Eucharist is the sacrament of the Church's unity, yet your true Eucharist is celebrated apart from the successor of St. Peter, on whom Christ built His Church (Matthew 16:18). We invite you into full communion with St. Peter's successor, the bishop of Rome, in the Catholic Church.
Your next step: Come to Mass or Divine Liturgy at your local Catholic church. You can find one near you at MassTimes.org. When you're ready, call the parish office and ask to speak with the priest about entering full communion with the Catholic Church. Read our guide: How Do I Become Catholic? Not ready yet? Get our free pocket guide below and keep learning.
FAQ
Is the Armenian Apostolic Church the same as the Armenian Catholic Church? No. Both use the Armenian rite and honor the same saints, but the Armenian Catholic Church, headed by the Armenian Catholic Patriarch of Cilicia, is in full communion with the Bishop of Rome; the Armenian Apostolic Church is not. See Are Eastern Catholic Churches Really Catholic?
Can an Armenian Apostolic Christian receive Communion at a Catholic Mass? Catholic ministers may give the sacraments of penance, Eucharist, and anointing to members of Eastern Churches not in full communion "if they seek such on their own accord and are properly disposed" (canon 844 §3). Respect your own Church's discipline, and speak with the priest first. This exception is not full communion, which is what Christ wills.
Can Armenians be saved outside the Catholic Church? Armenians have true sacraments and a real, though imperfect, communion with the Catholic Church (CCC 838, 1399). But "all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body," and "they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it" (CCC 846). Those who, "through no fault of their own," do not know this "may achieve eternal salvation" (CCC 847), a hope, not a guarantee. For more, see What Are the Oriental Orthodox Churches? and Is Miaphysitism Heresy?
Sources
Scripture (NABRE, bible.usccb.org): Isaiah 22:22; Matthew 16:18–19; Luke 22:31–32; John 10:16; John 17:20–21; John 21:15–17; 1 Corinthians 1:10, 13; Galatians 1:18; Ephesians 4:4–5.
Catechism of the Catholic Church (vatican.va): 816, 819, 838, 846, 847; 882; 1399.
Church documents (vatican.va): St. John Paul II and Karekin I, Common Declaration (December 13, 1996); St. John Paul II and Karekin II, Common Declaration (September 27, 2001); Francis, Message to Armenians (April 12, 2015); Francis and Karekin II, Common Declaration (June 26, 2016); Second Vatican Council, Orientalium Ecclesiarum 2, 3, 6, 24, 25; Code of Canon Law, canon 844.
Church Fathers and councils (newadvent.org unless noted): Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Romans; Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.3; Cyprian, On the Unity of the Church 4; Council of Nicaea (325), canon 6; Council of Ephesus (431), Sessions I and III; Athanasius, Apologia Contra Arianos 35 (Letter of Julius), NPNF2 vol. 4 (St-Takla.org).
Armenian Apostolic sources: Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, "Overview"; Armenian Apostolic Church, Pontifical Legation of Western Europe, "Faith"; Archbishop Khajag Barsamian, intervention on The Bishop of Rome (June 13, 2024).
History: CNEWA, "The Armenian Apostolic Church" (R. Roberson); CNEWA, "The Armenian Catholic Church" (R. Roberson); Pro Oriente, "The Armenian Catholic Church".