Today we will take a look at an icon of Григорий Армянский/Grigoriy Armyanskiy — “Gregory of Armenia” (c. 239 or 257-331) — Also called Григорий Просветитель/Grigoriy Prosvetitel — “Gregory the Enlightener” or “Gregory the Illuminator.” He is traditionally considered not only the person who converted Armenia to Christianity, but also the first bishop of the Armenian Church, and consequently the patron saint of Armenia.
Gregory’s father Anak Partev (“Anak the Parthian”) murdered the King of Armenia, Khosrov. In revenge, the relatives of Khosrov killed as many of the murderer’s family as they could, but Gregory was taken away by his nanny to Cappadocia, and so survived the purge.
Gregory was educated as a Christian, and when he returned to Armenia, he managed to obtain a position in the palace of King Tiridates the Great. He got himself into a great deal of trouble, however, by opposing the traditional non-Christian religious rites of the palace, and refusing to make offerings to the goddess Anahita. Apparently the King also discovered that Gregory’s father had murdered the King’s own father.
In punishment, Tiridates had Gregory thrown into the prison pit called Khor Varap (“Deep Dungeon”), which was near the former old capital, Artashat. There he was very much left and forgotten for some 13 years. He would have starved, it is said, had it not been for a Christian widow who supposedly had a dream about Gregory, and so brought him bread, which she dropped into the pit each day.
In this icon, we see the walls of the city at left, and the widow woman with a loaf of bread she is dropping into the pit where Gregory reaches up to receive it. Though there are lions and vipers in the pit, they do not harm him (and the lions make a good symbolic connection between Gregory and the Old Testament tale of Daniel in the lions’ den).
The “Image Not Made by Hands” of Jesus is just an added element.
But what are those creatures to the right of the pit?
Well, the story is that Tiridates, after imprisoning Gregory, killed a Christian maiden named Rhipsime, who refused his advances, and he murdered other Christian nuns as well. As a result of his evil deeds he supposedly went mad, and being possessed by a devil, he turned into a wild boar. So the king is the strange, mad, boar-headed man we see at right, among other boars. This is reminiscent of the Old Testament tale of King Nebuchadnezzar, who was made to live like a wild beast as divine punishment.
The tale continues with the sister of the mad King, whose name was Khosrovidhukt, having dreams of the prisoner Gregory, in which an angel told her that Gregory could cure the King of his madness. When finally her story was believed, Gregory was taken from the pit and brought to the mad King, whom he cured. As a result, the King and his court were converted to Christianity, and it was made the state religion of Armenia — or so the traditional tale in Eastern Orthodoxy goes.
As is common with the stories of saints, they should not be taken too seriously as reliable history — but they provide the often colorful materials upon which Eastern Orthodox icons are based, and as in this case, one must know the traditional story to explain the iconography.
ICONS AND THEIR INTERPRETATION 