Nerses Vazhapetian

1837 - 1884

Armenian patriarch of Istanbul, 1873 - 1884.

Born in Istanbul, Nerses Vazhapetian spent his entire life in or near the Ottoman capital. Although deprived of a formal education at the age of fifteen after the death of his father, Vazhapetian became a teacher and joined the clergy of the Armenian Apostolic Church. Anointed a celibate priest in 1858, he was a bishop by 1862. Active in the administrative affairs of the Armenian Millet, Vazhapetian had a hand in drafting the so-called Armenian national constitution by which the Armenian Church and millet were regulated in the Ottoman Empire. In 1873, at age thirty-seven, he was elected Armenian partiarch of Istanbul.

The Russo-Ottoman War of 1877 - 1878, partly waged over the Armenian-populated provinces of eastern Anatolia, brought the issue of the Armenians to the fore of the diplomatic contest for influence in the Ottoman Empire. When the extent of the Kurdish predations over the Armenian communities became known, Vazhapetian, who had issued an encyclical supporting the Ottoman war effort, was authorized by the Armenian national assembly to appeal to Grand Duke Nicholas at San Stefano for consideration of local self-government in the areas of Armenian concentration. In the formal Treaty of San Stefano, signed on 3 March 1878, by the Ottomans and Russians, Article 16 provided for reforms and security under Russian trusteeship in the so-called Armenian provinces.

While Russian withdrawal from these areas was conditional on implementation of the reforms, the Congress of Berlin revised the terms of the treaty. The Armenian delegation sent by Vazhapetian to Berlin received no hearing, and Article 61 of the Treaty of Berlin, signed 13 July 1878, provided only for reforms as those territories were returned to the Ottomans. Still Armenians expected an international treaty to prove more binding on the Ottomans than mere promises. The failure of the European powers to require Sultan Abdülhamit II to proceed with reforms became the source of disillusionment. By the time of Vazhapetian's death in Istanbul, small groups of provincial Armenians had began to resort to self-defense in the face of continued insecurity in what became known as the Armenian Revolutionary Movement.

Bibliography

Nalbandian, Louise. The Armenian Revolutionary Movement: TheDevelopment of Armenian Political Parties through the Nineteenth Century. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967.

Walker, Christopher J. A rmenia: The Survival of a Nation, revised 2d edition. New York: St. Martin's, 1990.

— ROUBEN P. ADALIAN