"The Glory of Vartan"

This large mural icon surrounds the stained glass image of St. Vartan on the south wall of the Church.

It is the culmination of what Vartan began some 30 years prior and is the crowning glory of the beloved saint in the Armenian Church.
At the top, Angels are seen Crowning the Saint who fell with comrade martyrs on the field of Avarayr.
Below is Vahan Mamigonian, a nephew of Vartan and a leader of the Armenians. Vahan is being given the "Treaty of Nvarsak" in A.D. 484, signed between the Armenian leader and Sasanian Persia’s King Balash. It ended decades of revolt, resistance and guerilla warfare, and granted the Armenians vital religious freedom and political autonomy. It allowed free Christian worship, stopped forced conversion to Zoroastrianism, and affirmed the removal of fire-altars, securing Armenia's national identity.

This treaty is recognized by historians as the first granting freedom of conscience.

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"The Glory of Vartan" Mural Icon

Donated in 1985 by
Oscar Chakarian and Families
In memory of Luke and Azniv Chakarian

Saints Vartan the Brave

and his 1,036 Martyrs

who died in the Great Battle of Avarayr

On the Thursday preceding Great Lent, Armenians commemorate an important event in their history; the religious war waged between pagan Persia and Christian Armenia in the year A.D. 451.

The hero of this war was St. Vartan the Brave. All those who gave their lives in this war are called collectively the “Vartanians” (Vartanantz). Armenia, the first country in the world to proclaim Christianity as its state religion (A.D. 301) lived peacefully under its own kings, and then under Persian rule and during the first half of the fifth century Armenia developed its culture with great zeal as the Bible was translated into Armenian, and Christianity flourished throughout the nation.

Armenians, who formally shared many pagan religious similarities as the Persians, showed signs of alienation from them after accepting Christianity. In order to force the Armenians to revert back to the Persian religion, the King of Persia decreed that all Christians under his rule should abandon their new religion and accept Mazdeism, the distinctive feature of which was the worship of the Sun and Fire.

The Armenians, clergy and ruling princes, responded by boldly answering this royal decree that they had not the slightest intention of abandoning the Christian orthodox faith. They wrote a letter to the Persian King in which they said:

“Our religion is not like a garment that we might change according to the circumstances; it is part and parcel of our bones and blood and personality… we serve you loyally in your army and pay you taxes faithfully if you leave us alone in the matter of religion. If you try to force your will upon us we are ready to suffer, and to be tortured and even to die. However, you should know in advance that there is no power on earth which can force us to change our religion because our covenant is not with man but with the almighty God.”

The Persians countered this boldness with a heavy hand. They sent a huge army to Armenia comprising 220,000 strong, to crush the resistance and to convert the country to paganism by force.

In A.D. 451, on the field of Avarayr near mount Ararat, a band of 66,000 semi-trained and poorly equipped Armenian fighters, under the leadership of Vartan Mamigonian, their commander in chief, stood waiting for the invading army of Persians.

Vartan Mamigonian was the descendant of a noble Armenian family. From his mother’s side he was the grandson of Sahag the Catholicos, the chief translator of the Bible from the Greek (and Syriac) into Armenian. Vartan was, at the time the head of the Mamigonian House, a very influential and renowned ruling family in Armenia. Vartan knew full well that the Persians outnumbered his men, that they were well equipped and that they were going to use their hordes of elephants against him, but he put his trust in God and preferred honorable death to servility.

The day before the battle, the Armenian soldiers spent the night in prayer and devotion. The entire army prayed and received Holy Communion. The head of the Church, Catholicos Hovsep, was there together with his clergy. Father Ghevont, zealous among the clergy, together with Vartan Mamigonian, encouraged the soldiers with an inspiring speech.

Finally, the clash with the Persian forces began. The Armenians inflicted great losses on the enemy. In this battle, which lasted only one day, and in the subsequent guerilla fighting, 1,036 Armenians fell, against the Persian loss of 3,544 soldiers. The battle of Avarayr came to an end with the fall of Vartan the brave.

The Armenians, seeing that they were left without a commander, withdrew to their castles and inaccessible mountains to carry on a guerilla war. In this battle Vartan and his comrades suffered a military defeat; but in reality they had proven to be a formidable foe and ultimately they were victorious. They lost the battle but in the end they won the war and attained their aim for which they were fighting.

The Persians eventually stopped their scheme of converting the country to their religion, when they realized how steadfast the Armenians were in their faith and convictions. Their defeat became a moral victory. Some thirty years later, a nephew of Vartan, Vahan Mamigonian, brought this religious resistance to a successful end by dictating simple terms to the Persians: a) full religious freedom, b) home rule for the country, and c) replacement of corrupt officers with men of dependable character.

Vartan has become the most outstanding hero of the Armenian nation. He, with his comrades in arms, together with millions of others following their example throughout Armenian history, laid down their lives so that future generations of Armenians could worship their Lord and God freely.

The war of St. Vartan was fought exclusively on the issue of freedom of conscience, and as such, it constitutes a glorious event in the struggle of humanity for freedom of religion. Vartan and his valiant men were the pioneers of freedom of conscience in the middle of the fifth century. As a result of such battles in our history and the fine spirit, which the Vartanians displayed, the Christian faith has survived in Armenia throughout the centuries and even under the most deplorable circumstances.