Gregory II the Martyrophile

Vahram Pahlavuni (Armenian: Գրիգոր Բ Վկայասեր; † December 5, 1105 in the monastery Karmir Vanq at Kessoun ) was from 1065 to 1105 as Gregory II Vkayaser Catholicos of the Armenian Church.

He was a son of Gregory Magistros Pahlavuni, the strategos of Mesopotamia. He served in the Byzantine army, but then entered the monastery.

Mt consent of the Emperor Constantine X., he was elected to the council in Tzamandos in Cappadocia, the seat of the Armenian King Gagik emigrated from Kars, Catholicos after the office had been vacant for five years. He was nicknamed Vkayaser ( "martyr friend " ), because he collected relics and legends of saints with great zeal. However, he saw the opposition of the Byzantine Orthodox bishops, and exposed mainly by John VIII, Patriarch of Constantinople Opel. In 1071 he moved back to the monastery back after he had appointed his confidant George of Lori as his successor.

After learning of the Byzantine defeat at Manzikert in 1071, he took over his previous office again, took his seat in a monastery on the " Black Mountain " in Cilicia and began to promote a concerted campaign against the Seljuk Turks. He went to Egypt, the Holy Land and Constantinople Opel. After Matthias of Edessa ( 2 Chronicles, 108) Vahram also traveled to Rome, but this is rejected by most historians to be unlikely. According to another source, he met with Pope Sylvester.

Gregory II sent to other sources a priest named John as ambassador to Pope Gregory VII to Rome, to ask him for help against the Seljuks. The Pope listened to him, made ​​numerous liturgical change proposals, but sent him a pallium back to Asia Minor.

Gregory II continued his nephew Barsegh (1081-1105) as a bishop in the Seljuk occupied Ani. In 1103 he visited Edessa, where he was received by Baldwin II palatial. In his last years lived Vahram increasingly withdrawn. He died on December 5, 1105 in Karmir Vanq monastery at Kessoun. His nephew Barsegh of Ani stood before his funeral and became the recognized new Catholicos.

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