Saint Hripsime

Life events

1. Exiled

   According to the account recorded by Agathangelos, Hripsime, a Roman virgin, fled Armenia with a group of companions including Gayane to escape persecution by the emperor Diocletian.

2. Martyred

   In Armenia, Hripsime was tortured and killed by king Tiridates III after she rejected his advances; her death became the pivotal event in the traditional account of Armenia's Christianization.

3. Other

   Following Tiridates III's conversion to Christianity (traditionally dated 301 or 314 AD), he and Gregory the Illuminator built a martyrium at the site of Hripsime's death in Vagharshapat as an act of remorse; Agathangelos records that Tiridates brought enormous stones from Mount Ararat for its construction.

4. Other — 363

   The original martyrium at the site of Hripsime's death was destroyed by Sasanian king Shapur II and his Armenian Zoroastrian ally Meruzhan Artsruni around 363, along with Etchmiadzin Cathedral and other Christian sites.

5. Translated — 395

   Catholicos Sahak Partev built a new chapel-martyrium over Hripsime's remains in 395; the seventh-century historian Sebeos later described it as 'too low and dark'.

6. Other — 618

   Catholicos Komitas demolished the earlier chapel and built the present Saint Hripsime Church over her tomb in Vagharshapat in 618, a date corroborated by two inscriptions he left on the building and by the historian Sebeos.

7. Other — 1610

   Two Catholic Augustinian missionaries removed Hripsime's relics from the church in 1610 during a period of abandonment following Shah Abbas I's mass deportation of Armenians; with the same Shah's assistance, the relics were recovered and returned.

8. Other

   Archaeological excavations led by Raffi Torosyan and Babken Arakelyan in 1976–78 uncovered Christian-style burials near the church's fourth-century foundations, identified by scholars and the Armenian Apostolic Church as the remains of Hripsime and her companions.

Relationships

Documented claims

• The primary literary source for Hripsime's life is Agathangelos, whose account describes her as a Roman virgin who fled Diocletianic persecution and was killed by Tiridates III for refusing his advances. (legendary)
• Hripsime's martyrdom and Tiridates III's subsequent remorse are traditionally identified as the catalyst for his conversion and Armenia's adoption of Christianity, conventionally dated 301 or 314 AD. (legendary)
• Hripsime's tomb occupies an underground barrel-vaulted chamber beneath the eastern apse of the 618 church; scholars date the crypt to the early fifth century, and the current gravestone was installed in 1986. (plausible)
• The two inscriptions Catholicos Komitas engraved on the church in 618 and 628 are the second-oldest known Armenian-language inscriptions, after the Tekor Church inscription of c. 478–490. (certain)
• Hripsime fled to Armenia with a group of companions; Gayane is named among them and is also venerated as a martyr, with a contemporaneous church built in her name at Vagharshapat. (legendary)