"From Ambiguity to Separation: Shaping an Armenian Catholic Identity in Constantinople (1680–1730)", paper delivered at the International Conference "Global Reformations. Transforming Early Modern Religions, Societies, and Cultures", Toronto, 28–30 September 2017 (original) (raw)
In the first decades of the Eighteenth century, the Armenian Catholic community of the Ottoman Empire was troubled by the widespread phenomenon of communicatio in sacris. By this term, the Roman Church defined the illicit participation of Catholics to the liturgical celebrations and sacraments of a non-Catholic worship. Paradoxically, this practice was a consequence of the increasing success of Catholic missionaries in the conversion of the Armenian communities of the Empire: according to the Ottoman juridical framework, the new converts could not enjoy separate churches or clergy, but were rather forced to resort to the Armenian Apostolic hierarchy for the reception of all those sacraments that held civil effects (baptism, marriage, funerals). Those who refused or disobeyed the Patriarch’s authority were considered rebels also from a political point of view, unleashing severe persecution. Facing the difficulty of respecting Roman bans on the subject, a part of the Catholic missionary world pushed for some form of tolerance, whilst another one chose a rigorist stance. Since the beginning, the disciples of Abbot Mkhitar were identified as the strongest advocates of an elastic and even favorable approach to communicatio in sacris, attracting the hostility and accusations of heterodoxy from other Armenian Catholic missionaries, like the pupils of Propaganda Fide. In 1718, Mkhitar came to Rome to defend his congregation from these allegations. On this occasion, he submitted to the exam of the Holy Office three “doubts” on the liceity of attending ‘schismatic’ churches and receiving there the sacraments when it was not possible to do otherwise without serious risk and danger of life. These questions, and the attached memorial in which Mkhitar tried to solicit a positive response from the Cardinal Inquisitors, fostered a long-lasting theological debate, still lively at the end of the century. In my paper, I will examine this crucial episode through the unpublished documentation held in the Holy Office archives.