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Document Details : Title: Religious Relations between the Armenians and the Portuguese Augustinians in Persia in the 17th Century Author(s): GULBENKIAN, Roberto Journal: Journal of Eastern Christian Studies Volume: 63 Issue: 1-2 Date: 2011 Pages: 5-43 DOI: 10.2143/JECS.63.1.2149612 Abstract : By contrast with the other religious Orders, members of the Augustinian Order were late arrivals in Portuguese India. Following their initial establishment in Goa in 1572, the presence of an Armenian Christian there played a part in the establishment of the Order’s mission to Persia, which would last for almost a century and a half. Portuguese Augustinians were chosen to act as ambassadors for the Spanish Hapsburgs, and in this capacity encountered Armenians both in Armenia, and in the Persian capital Isfahan, to which they had been deported in large numbers in 1604-5, and would establish themselves in the suburb of New Julfa. This paper describes these contacts, and in particular the attempts of the Augustinians to restore unity between the Armenian Church and that of Rome. These attempts would end in failure, but shed important light on the differing ecclesiology of the two Churches, in particular with regard to papal primacy, and on the complex interplay of religion and politics, at both a local and international level, in the Shia Muslim state established by the Safavid monarchs. |
