Relics, Rulers, Patronage: The True Cross of Varag and the Church of the Holy Cross on Ałt‘amar

The article analyzes the origin and development of the cult of the True Cross of Varag, a True Cross relic that was kept in the Monastery of Varag in Vaspurakan, south of Lake Van, since the middle of the seventh century. It first provides a detailed analysis of seventh- to tenth-century traditions on the True Cross of Varag, particularly a Homily dedicated to it, as well as some liturgical hymns, folkloric traditions and historical notices. The discovery of the Cross of Varag is placed under the rule of Theodore Ṙštuni and his son Vard Patrik Ṙštuni based on a minute theological, christological, historical and ideological analysis of the "Homily on the True Cross of Varag", and in a context of military rivalries and claims of dominance over the territory of historical Armenia between the Byzantine Empire and the emerging (and expanding) Muslim polity. It then highlights the new elements that came to enrich the cult of the True Cross of Varag when Vaspurakan was conquered by the Arcruni (Artsruni) dynasty since the eighth, but especially ninth and tenth centuries, and particularly under the rule of King Gagik Arcruni. The dedication of Gagik's splendid church on the island of Ałt‘amar to the True Cross is placed in connection to the veneration of the True Cross of Varag, as well as traditional Arcruni practices of religious patronage. At least since the middle of the ninth century the True Cross of Varag and its discovery became associated with the first saints or founding mothers and fathers of the Armenian Church, such as St. Hṙip‘simē and St. Gregory the Illuminator. Such associations are placed in a wider context, such as evidence from the neighbouring Caucasian Albania were the "translatio" or discovery of True Cross relics was linked to the first saints of the Armenian and/or Caucasian Albanian church. The article explores not only the religious, but also political and cultural significance of the patronage of the True Cross relics in general, and that of Varag in particular by the Arcruni princely, then royal, dynasty. It closes with a short foray into the fortunes of the Cross of Varag after Vaspurakan was ceded to the Byzantine Empire, the use of this relic in the context of the Crusades and in Cilician Armenia, as well as notices of its importance even to the Muslim population in the region south of Lake Van in the fifteenth century.