Peter I of Armenia

Peter I (died 1058), known as Petros Getadardz in Armenian, was the Catholicos of the Armenian Apostolic Church between 1019 and 1058. He was the brother of a former Catholicos Khachik I. He was the author of several works of sermons, anthems, and elegies on early Christian martyrs.

Peter I played an important political role in the last years of Bagratid Armenia. In 1022, he negotiated a treaty with the Byzantine emperor Basil II which willed the Bagratid kingdom of Ani to the Byzantine Empire after the death of the current king, Hovhannes-Smbat III. His pro-Byzantine stance caused significant controversy. In 1037, Hovhannes-Smbat unsuccessfully attempted to have him removed from office. After Hovhannes-Smbat's death, Peter pushed his successor Gagik II to go before the Byzantine emperor in Constantinople, in the meantime sending the Emperor the keys to the city of Ani. After the fall of Ani to the Byzantines, Peter was held in Constantinople for four years before being allowed to settle in Sebasteia, where he remained until his death. He was succeeded by his nephew Khachik II.

Although Peter I had hoped to strengthen his authority as Catholicos by helping the Byzantines annex Armenia, he soon found that the Empire also intended to end the independence of the Armenian Church. In his later years he commissioned a theological treatise criticizing dyophysitism and maintaining the miaphysite position of the Armenian Church.

Biography Peter I was the brother of an earlier catholicos, Khachik I, and the nephew of another catholicos, Ananias I. He succeeded Catholicos Sarkis I in 1019, while the latter was still alive, and was anointed by his predecessor at Ani. The beginning of his patriarchate coincided with a succession crisis in the Bagratid kingdom of Ani: after King Gagik I's death in 1020, his sons Hovhannes-Smbat and Ashot IV competed for the throne. Peter took the side of Hovhannes-Smbat. In 1021, the crisis was resolved through the mediation of the Catholicos and the nobility, resulting in the division of the kingdom. The city of Ani and its surroundings went to the elder son, Hovhannes-Smbat, while the rest of the kingdom went to Ashot. In 1022, in order to prevent a Byzantine invasion of Armenia, Hovhannes-Smbat sent Peter I to Trebizond, where he concluded a treaty with Emperor Basil II. According to the treaty, the Kingdom of Ani would be pass to Byzantium after Hovhannes-Smbat's death. The treaty caused an outrage in Ani, forcing Peter I to move to Sebasteia, from which he returned to Ani only in 1026. In Trebizond, Peter I celebrated the Feast of the Epiphany in the presence of the Byzantine emperor; in Eastern Christianity, this holiday is accompanied by the blessing of holy water. The Armenian clergymen, led by Peter I, blessed the water at one part of the river, while the Byzantine clergymen stood downstream so that the water blessed by the non-Chalcedonian Armenians could be blessed again. (The 11th–12th centuries were a time of heightened Byzantine–Armenian theological disputes.) A tradition arose in Armenia that the river's course stopped and then reversed after Peter I's blessing, giving rise to his epithet Getadardz ('reversing the course of the river').

Peter I's pro-Byzantine policies brought on a new protests in 1031, and he was forced to move to Dzoravank (a former seat of the Armenian catholicos) in Vaspurakan, which by that time was under Byzantine control. In 1037, Hovhannes-Smbat recalled him and confined him in the fortress of Bjni, selecting Dioscorus, the abbot of Sanahin, as the new catholicos. But one year later Peter's supporters assembled a council of clergymen, princes and azats (lesser nobles), led by Joseph, the Catholicos of Albania (Ałuank). In 1039, the council reconfirmed Peter as Catholicos, after which Dioscorus returned to Sanahin. The Catholicos's letters reveal him to be one of the most learned and cultured men of his time. However, medieval Armenian historians wrote of his love for money and power, for which he was criticized during his lifetime.