| Abstract: | A Christian isolationism, adherence to doctrine the Roman/Byzantine Empire deemed heretical, has popularly been assumed to have been integral to medieval Armenian identity. However, Armenians’ isolation was only partial: pilgrimage to the Holy Land joined them to the wider Christian world; missionary work was limited rather by politics and internal problems; orthodoxy and desire for church union were strong in Armenian history. ‘National’ unity was not an ideal, but distinctiveness was asserted by propagating, in literature and sculpture, an Old Testament, Hebraic descent for rival aristocratic families, and an equivalence between their leaders and Old Testament figures. |
