Three volumes bound as one, the Lyturgia Armena, Ministerium Missale and a document in Latin about the Armenian Mass, First editions of these two liturgical works for the Armenian Catholic rite, an expression of Roman hopes of unification with the Armenian Church. Bound with ‘Liturgiae aut Missa ritum ecclesiae Armeniae Catholicae’, a Latin mass with approximately 40 lines per page (dated March 15, 1631).

Scholar Sebouh Aslanian commented, “These two works (a missal and liturgical book for the celebration of mass) were printed in Rome at the press of the Propaganda Fide in 1677 as both the title pages and Dr. Nersessian’s expert summary indicates. Both works are listed in the standard reference catalogue of Armenian printed books from 1512-1800 by Ninel Vosganyan and her team in Yerevan in the 1980s. They appear as the 103rd and 104th Armenian printed books in that catalogue. This is the beginning of the entry from that catalogue: ԽՈՐՀՐԴԱՏԵՏՐ: — ՍՊԱՍԱՒՈՐՈՒԹԻՒՆ ՊԱՏԱՐԱԳԻ: Հռոմ, տպ, Ուրբանեան, 1677:
Ա. ՏԻՏՂԹ.` ԽՈՐՀՐԴԱՏԵՏՐ /ՊԱՏԱՐԱԳԻՆ ՀԱՅՈՑ./ LYTVRIGA/ ARMENA. / ROMAE./ Tipis Sacrae Congregationis de Propaganda Fide,/ MDCLXXVII./
Բ. ՏԻՏՂԹ.` ՍՊԱՍԱՒՈՐՈՒԹԻՒՆ /ՊԱՏԱՐԱԳԻ:/ MINISTERIVM/ MISSAE./ ROMAE./ Tipis Sacrae Congregationis de Propaganda Fide, MDCLXXVII./

As Nersessian correctly points out, liturgical books like this were very hotly contested between defenders of the Armenian church and its confessional and liturgical/Christological tenets of faith and those working for the Roman Catholic Church’s brazen attempts to impose its own confessional tenets and doctrines on the Armenian church. Whether the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father alone or “and also from the Son” (known as the Filioque controversy) were serious matters over which some people were evidently killed or tortured in the inter-confessional violence and strife that tore apart the Armenians of the Ottoman empire about thirty years after these books were published.

There’s much more that can be said about these confessional struggles in the age of confessionalism (see a forthcoming book for references to a larger and more specialized scholarship).

Regarding the appearance of the hybrid print-manuscript format, I can only say I have seen many instances of this, especially in these type of books. I have a high-res scan of similar printed works relating to the Mkhitarist Congregation where more than half the volume consists of Latin-language manuscript additions of the Mkhitarist constitutions, for example. I suspect former owners of these printed books added their own commentaries of works to the binding of the work in question but this is only an educated guess. My friend Cesare Santus is the real expert on these questions and he can correct and add more to what I have written above, I am sure.”

Cesare Santus, “It is definitely a handwritten copy of the ‘Ordo divinae Missae Armenorum’, composed in the late 1630s but published only in 1642 by Propaganda. The date which is shown in the colophon is actually 1635 and refers not the date of this copy but only to the decree of the General Meeting of Propaganda which authorized the publication; the ‘Vincentio Richardo Theatino’ mentioned above was the reviewer/censor, who is mentioned also in the printed version. The translator is normally identified with Giovanni Molino (Yovhannēs Ankiwrac’i), even if there are a few things in chronology that do not convince me. As for the scribe of this copy, it would be necessary to make some checks in the archives of Propaganda.”