Mekhitar of Sebaste

Mkhitar Sebastatsi , anglicized: Mekhitar of Sebaste, (17 February 1676 – 27 April 1749) was an Armenian Catholic monk, scholar and theologian who founded the Mekhitarist Order, which has been based on San Lazzaro island near Venice since 1717.

The Armenian historian Stepanos Nazarian described him as the "second Mesrop Mashtots". The cause for his beatification was opened after his death; as such, he is termed a Servant of God.

Life Early life He was born Manug in Sivas Eyalet in the Ottoman Empire on 17 February 1676, the son of a prosperous merchant Bedros [Peter] and his wife Sharistan. His parents gave him a good education to prepare him to assume the family business. Instead, from an early age, he wanted to become a monk. Refused permission for this, he found a young companion to flee to the mountains where they might live as hermits. Quickly found by his parents he was returned home. As a result of this, the bishop who was abbot of the nearby Monastery of Surp Nshan (Holy Cross) conferred minor orders on the boy so that he might assist at the liturgical services of the monastery. Still refused permission to enter the monastery by his parents, he began to frequent a neighboring family which consisted of a mother and her two daughters who lived a monastic form of life in their home, which they shared with an elderly priest, who then taught him about the Divine Office.

At the age of fifteen, Manug finally received the permission he had long sought from his family and he entered the nearby monastery, where he was quickly ordained a deacon. It was at this point that he changed his name to the one he is now known by, Mekhitar (The Consoler).

Veneration The cause for Mekhitar's beatification, which would normally have been able to start fifty years after his death was disrupted by the events of the invasion of Italy by the armies of Revolutionary France under Napoleon, in the course of which almost all monasteries were closed. It was begun about 1895 under the Patriarch of Venice, Giuseppe Sarto. In 1914, after his election as Pope Pius X, the cause was formally accepted by Holy See.