By Kevin D. Paulson
“These people have put on Christianity, not like a garment, but like their flesh and blood. Men who do not dread fetters, nor fear torments, nor care for their property, and, what is worst of all, who choose death rather than life—who can stand against them?”1
So declared a Zoroastrian high priest to a fifth-century Persian monarch regarding the king’s Armenian subjects. Few words more aptly describe the tenacious faithfulness of the world’s first Christian nation.
According to Armenian tradition, they are descendants of Togarmah, listed in the book of Genesis as a grandson of Japheth, one of the three sons of Noah. Gen. 10:3. Togarmah’s son Hayk (often spelled Haig by Armenians) is believed to have been the original Armenian patriarch.2 Haig is not mentioned in the Bible, but his legendary exploits and establishment of the Armenian nation form a fascinating footnote
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1. Serpouhi Tavoukdjian, Exiled: Story of an Armenian Girl (Review and Herald , 1933), pp. 10–11.
2. Wikipedia, “Hayk,” last updated Oct. 15, 2024.
3. Much of the narrative that follows is taken from the book Exiled, by Serpouhi Tavoukdjian, pp. 7–8.
4. Wikipedia, “Hayk.”
5. Ibid.
6. Wikipedia, “History of Armenia,” last updated Oct. 19, 2024.
7. Ibid.
8. Wikipedia, “Gregory the Illuminator,” last updated Oct. 13, 2024.
9. Ibid.
10. Wikipedia, “History of Armenia.”
11. Wikipedia, “Bible translations into Armenian,” last updated Oct. 11, 2023.
12. Ibid.
13. Dojcin Zivadinovic, “Sabbath in the East: A Historical Analysis of Seventh-day Sabbath Observance in Eastern and Near-Eastern Christian Tradition,” Sabbath in the East, 2023, p. 22.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid.
16. Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan (Pacific Press, 1911), p. 63.
17. Zivadinovic, “Sabbath in the East,” p. 23.
18. Wikipedia, “Yazdegerd II,” last updated July 3, 2024.
19. Wikipedia, “Armenian genocide,” last updated Oct. 6, 2024.
20. Ibid.
21. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “The Armenian Genocide (1915–16): Overview,” Holocaust Encyclopedia.
22. “Hitler and the Armenian Genocide,” Genocide Education Project.
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Kevin Paulson writes from Berrien Springs, Michigan, and enjoys researching, writing, and speaking on biblical topics. He is a descendant of Armenians who prized both liberty of conscience and their sacred history.