Aristaces Azaria
Aristaces Azaria (b. at Constantinople, 18 July 1782; d. at Vienna, 6 May 1854) was a Roman Catholic Armenian abbot and archbishop.
Life
Azaria was sent at the age of fifteen to the College of the Propaganda in Rome, but his studies were interrupted in 1798 by the French invasion. He took refuge among the Mechitarists of Trieste, and entered their order in 1801. In the same year he was ordained priest.
In 1810, the authorities of the ephemeral Kingdom of Illyria confiscated the property of his convent. After vain attempts to obtain restitution, the monks settled in Vienna, where they lived by the instruction of Armenian youth and the revenue of a printing-press. Azaria was henceforth active as a missionary among his compatriots and a servant of the Holy See.
In 1826 he was made general abbot of the community, and in 1827 was raised to the (titular) dignity of Archbishop of Caesarea. Under him the Mechitarist community in Vienna prospered, its library was increased, a bookstore added to the printing-press, and an abundant religious literature created, in Armenian and in German. Azaria opened houses of his community in Rome, Triest, and Stamboul, founded the Armenian journal Europa, established an academy for the literary and political improvement of his people, and in 1830 obtained form the Porte the creation of an independent Catholic Armenian patriarchate. After a visit to Rome (1850) in the interest of monastic reform, he returned to Vienna (1852) where he died after the celebration of his golden jubilee.
Works
Azaria wrote several (mostly anonymous) works,[contradictory] among them De Vitâ Communi Perfecta Religiosorum Utriusque Sexus, in which he criticizes the condition of many Austrian religious houses, and Die Erziehung im Geiste des Christenthumes (Vienna, 1839).
References
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Aristaces Azaria". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
