Two young Tyrian brothers, Frumentius and Edesius, were traveling on the Red Sea with their uncle Metropius when some raiders attacked their ship. The boys were sold as slaves to the King of Aksum (in today’s Ethiopia), who liked them and employed them as tutors for his son Ezana. According to most sources, this occurred around the year 316. The brothers taught the king and his family about Christ and promoted the spreading of the gospel, both by their own interaction with the locals and by encouraging Christian merchants to meet for worship and share their faith with others.

The accounts of the birth of early Christian nations is often shrouded in legend, as stories were told and retold, but there are still enough historical records to show that much of them are true.

Grigor and the Brave Women of Armenia

Armenia is traditionally considered the first nation to adopt Christianity as its official religion. The adventurous story of that momentous beginning is told in the History of the Armenians, written around the year 460 by Agathangelos. It involved some brave Christians and a repentant king.

According to tradition, the gospel arrived in Armenia through the apostles Thaddeus and Bartholomew, who were martyred there. Some sources indicate that Santukht, daughter of the Armenian King Sanatruk, was personally instructed by Thaddeus, and that Sanatruk killed both.

Agathangelos, however, starts his account with the story of Grigor Lusavorich, later known as Gregory the Illuminator. Born between 239 to 257, Gregory was the son of a Parthian agent who, under order of his king, murdered the Armenian king Khosrov II.

As it’s usually the case, Khosrov’s relatives took revenge by killing Grigor’s father and most his family. One of a handful of survivors, Grigor was raised and educated in Caesarea of Cappadocia, where he learned about Christ and received a good education.

The reasons for his return to Armenia are not clear, but he apparently served King Khosrov’s son, King Trdat III, until he was imprisoned for refusing to worship a traditional Armenian deity. He remained in a grim prison cell (still visible under the monastery of Khor Virap in Artašat) for thirteen years, suffering privations and tortures.  

But he was not the only persecuted Christian in Armenia. Agathangelos tells of the martyrdom of thirty-three nuns who had apparently come from Cappadocia in an attempt to escape persecution by the Roman Emperor Diocletian.

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