Mesrop Mashtots, Saint

St. Mesrop Mashtots, Mesrop also spelled Mesrob, (born c. 360, Hatsik, Armenia [modern Muş, Turkey]—died February 17, 440; Western feast day, Thursday following 4th Sunday after Pentecost, and Monday following 3rd Sunday after the Assumption; Armenian feast day, February 19), monk, theologian, and linguist who, according to tradition, invented the Armenian script in 405 and helped establish Armenia’s golden age of Christian literature. He is venerated as a saint in the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Armenian Catholic Church, and in Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches.

After studying Classical languages with the patriarch St. Nerses I, Mesrop Mashtots began a monastic existence about 395. He was ordained a priest, maintained a lifelong esteem for the ascetic life, and founded several monasteries. He spread Christianity in remote areas of Armenia and suppressed Mazdaism, a religion descended from Zoroastrianism. Later, he served as chancellor to King Vramshapuh, who supported him in systematizing or inventing the definitive 36-character Armenian alphabet, following a Greek model; St. Isaac the Great, supreme head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, and a Greek known as Rufanos were also believed to have helped. (Two letters were added later.) This alphabet was initially used to translate from the Greek the first popular Armenian Bible, the “Mesropian” Bible (c. 410). Mesrop Mashtots himself was responsible for translating the New Testament and the Old Testament book of Proverbs. He subsequently revised the entire text.

Mesrop Mashtots dispatched his circle of scholars to Constantinople (modern Istanbul), Alexandria, and Rome in search of biblical and literary manuscripts. A collection of biblical commentaries, translations of patristic works, and liturgical prayers and hymns constructed on an eight-tone scale is credited to him, corroborating his reputation for having laid the foundation of a national Armenian liturgy.