GREGORY THE ILLUMINATOR, the reputed founder of the Armenian Church. His legend is briefly as follows. His father Anak, head of the Parthian clan of Suren, was bribed about the time of his birth (c. 257) by the Sassanid king of Persia to assassinate the Armenian king, Chosroes, who was of the old Arsacid dynasty, and father of Tiridates or Trdat, first Christian king of Armenia. Anak was slain by his victim's soldiers; Gregory was rescued by his Christian nurse, carried to Caesarea in Cappadocia, and brought up a Christian. Grown to manhood he took service under Tiridates, now king of Armenia, in order by his own fidelity to atone for his father's treachery. Presently at a feast of Anahite Gregory refused to assist his sovereign in offering pagan sacrifice, and his parentage being now revealed, was thrown into a deep pit at Artashat, where he languished for fourteen years, during which persecution raged in Armenia. The scene of the legend now shifts to Rome, where Diocletian falls in love with a lovely nun named Ripsime; she, rather than gratify his passion, flees with her abbess Gaiana and several priests to Armenia. Diocletian asks her back of Tiridates, who meanwhile has fallen in love with her himself. He too is flouted, and in his rage tortures and slays her and her companions. The traditional date of this massacre is the 5th of October, A.D. 301. Providence, incensed at such cruelty, turns Tiridates into a wild boar, and afflicts his subjects with madness; but his sister, Chosrowidukht, has a revelation to bring Gregory back out of his pit. The king consents, the saint is acclaimed, the bodies of the thirty-seven martyrs solemnly interred, and the king, after fasting five, and listening to Gregory's homilies for sixty days, is healed. This all took place at Valarshapat, where Gregory, anxious to fix a site on which to build shrines for the relics of Ripsime and Gaiana, saw the Son of God come down in a sheen of light, the stars of heaven attending, and smite the earth with a golden hammer till the nether world resounded to his blows. Three chapels were built on the spot, and Gregory raised his cross there and elsewhere for the people to worship, just as St Nino was doing about the same time in Georgia. There followed a campaign against the idols whose temples and books were destroyed. The time had now come for Gregory, who was still a layman and father of two sons, to receive ordination; so he went to Caesarea, where Leontius ordained and consecrated him catholicos or vicar-general of Armenia. This was sometime about 290, when Leontius may have acceded, though we first hear of him as bishop in 314. Gregory's ordination at Caesarea is historical. The vision at Valarshapat was invented later by the Armenians when they broke with the Greeks, in order to give to their church the semblance, if not of apostolic, at least of divine origin.