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24 The Armenian Church

• The eleventh period: In the 19th Century
the Armenian Constitution was formulated
and the role of the Armenian Church was
reactivated within the Ottoman Empire.
• The twelfth period: This period, which
includes the 20th Century, can be charac-
terized as a period of martyrdom, survival,
and recovery. After the Genocide, the Ar-
menian Church in the diaspora recovered its
spiritual vitality and reorganized its mis-
sionary engagement. In Armenia, under the
Soviet rule, the Armenian Church suffered
immensely.
• The present period: The events that
dominated this period are: the independence
of Armenia (1991), the restoration of the self-
determination of the Armenians in Nagorno-
Karabagh (1991), the celebration of the 1700th
anniversary of the conversion of Armenia to
Christianity (2001), the commemoration of
the centennial of the Armenian Genocide
(2015), and the canonization of the Genocide
martyrs (2015). This has been a period of
renaissance.

The origin of the Armenian Church
According to tradition, the seeds of the
Christian faith were sown in Armenia by the
two apostles of Jesus Christ, St. Thaddeus
and St. Bartholomew, who are considered to