Mesrop mashtots biography books

Portrait of Mashtots by Stepanos Nersissian (1882)

He traveled to different areas, teaching the Gospel and converting many people.

At that time, Armenians did not have their own alphabet. They used Greek, Persian, and Syriac letters. Translators had to explain everything.

Mesrop, Catholicos Isaac, and King Vramshapuh realized how important it was for Armenians to have their own writing system.

With the assistance of Greek and Syriac clerics who helped design and refine the letters, they laid the foundation for schools, Scripture translations and enduring historical legacies.

Some of his most famous students were Koryun and Moses of Chorene.

Translating the Bible

One of the first big projects was translating the Bible into Armenian. Many historians believe that without Mesrop's work, the Armenian language and people might have been lost.

Some old Armenian writings also say that Mashtots created the Georgian and Caucasian Albanian alphabets around the same time.

It is widely acknowledged that without an identity premised on a unique alphabet that differentiated them from surrounding peoples, it would have been much easier for Armenians, ruled by various powerful empires, to be subsumed and assimilated. Some of these Armenian translations are very important because the original Greek versions have been lost.

Mesrop continued to visit the areas where he had taught Christianity earlier in his life.

But these alphabets did not have all the sounds needed for the Armenian language. He is honored as a saint in the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Armenian Catholic Church, and the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches.

Life and Achievements

Mesrop Mashtots was born into a noble family in a village called Hatsekats, in the Taron region of Armenia.

He passed away just six months after his friend and teacher.

Saint Mesrop Mashtots is buried in a chapel in the village of Oshakan, Armenia. The first of those schools, Amaras Monastery in Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), where the new alphabet was taught - and by Mashtots - still exists. 

The significance of the creation of the Armenian alphabet by Mashtots cannot be overestimated.

After Catholicos Isaac died in 439 AD, Mesrop helped manage the church. So, some of Mesrop's students were sent to get better copies of the Greek Bible.

With these copies, the Bible was translated again from Greek. The Armenian catholicos at the time, Sahak, with the agreement of the king, Vramshapuh, tasked Mashtots with creating a new Armenian alphabet. 

Although popular folklore says that Mashtots wrote down the alphabet as it is known today because of a divine vision, he is known to have traveled and researched languages before settling upon his 36 letters.

He constructed the language to easily represent the complex sounds of the Armenian language.

After inventing the alphabet, he would establish schools throughout Armenia where the language would be taught using the new alphabet. Many works by early Christian writers were translated too.