Page 43 - THE ARMENIAN CHURCH_Neat

44 The Armenian Church

casus. In 1828, according to the treaty of
Turkmenchay, signed between Russia and
Persia, the larger part of Armenia came
under Russian control. In the following
decades, Russia secured a firm foothold in
the southern Caucasus, imposing the treaties
of Adrianople (1829), San Stefano (1878), and
Berlin (1885), by which Turkey ceded im-
portant parts of Western Armenia to Russia.
During the 17th and 18th Centuries, Ar-
menians tried to create an autonomous status
for at least a part of Armenia or Cilicia; they
failed. At the beginning of the Russian rule,
the Armenian Church experienced a short
period of spiritual and cultural renewal.
Later, however, the Russians forced the Ar-
menian schools to use only the Russian
language and confiscated church properties.
Catholicos Khrimian, referred to by the
people as Hayrik (father), vehemently pro-
tested against this policy and convinced the
Russians to abandon it. In 1836 Czar Nicho-
las I issued a decree, polojenie, defining the
way the Armenian Church should function.
While the decree granted limited autonomy
to the Church, it gave the Czar the pre-
rogative to nominate the catholicos from the
list of candidates proposed by the church
council.
Meanwhile, the Ottoman Empire, under
pressure from the western powers, issued
two imperial edicts, one in 1839 and one in