01 — Her World

The fifth-century Caucasus in which Shushanik lived and died: the kingdoms of Kartli (Iberia) and Armenia under Sasanian Persian pressure, Zoroastrianism as the empire’s religion and apostasy as the price of advancement, and the one undivided church of Armenia and Georgia before the early-seventh-century schism.

Tradition: Georgian Orthodox (shared pre-division veneration with the Armenian Apostolic Church)

Contents

File Description
kartli-and-armenia-under-persia.md The Sasanian grip on the Christian Caucasus: Yazdgird II and the Avarayr war of 451, Peroz I, the pitiakhshate of Gugark as a border-march between Armenia and Kartli, and the political economy of apostasy for Caucasian nobles
one-church-before-the-division.md The ecclesial unity of Armenia and Kartli in Shushanik’s lifetime: Chalcedon (451) not yet a dividing line, the Henotikon era, the Armenian councils of Dvin (506, 554/555), and the Armenian–Georgian schism under Kyrion (c. 607–610) — all after her death

Summary

Shushanik’s passion is unintelligible without its imperial frame. Fifth-century Armenia and Kartli were Christian lands inside the Sasanian sphere, and the Persian court under Yazdgird II (r. 439–457) and Peroz I (r. 459–484) pressed Zoroastrianism on the Caucasian nobility as an instrument of integration — a pressure that produced her father’s revolt and martyrdom at Avarayr in 451 (Ełishē, trans. Thomson, 1982; Łazar Pʿarpecʿi, trans. Thomson, 1991), and, a generation later, her husband’s calculated apostasy at Ctesiphon (Jakob Tsurtaveli, Martyrdom of Shushanik; Toumanoff, Studies in Christian Caucasian History, 1963). The first file maps that world; the second establishes the fact on which Section 07 depends — that in 475 the Armenian and Georgian churches were one communion, and their division belongs to the early seventh century (Garsoïan, L’Église arménienne, 1999; Loosley Leeming, Medieval Worlds 10, 2019).

See Also