Feast of the Holy Translators
The Invincible Philosopher. The Master of Mystic Poetry. The Wartime Chronicler. The Grace-Filled Patriarch. The Man of a Dozen Tongues.
Each is a saint of the Armenian Church—David, Narek, Yeghishe, Nersess, Mashdots—remembered together (along with others) as a distinctive “team” known as the Holy Translators.
Endowed with rare qualities of imagination and vision, the Holy Translators helped to forge a national identity for the Armenian people—using simple words and humble faith as their primary tools. Immediately after the discovery of the alphabet by St. Mesrob, the Holy Translators worked to translate the Bible into Armenian. The first words written in the Armenian language were from the Book of Proverbs: “To know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding” (Proverbs 1:2). They also opened schools to teach the newly-discovered alphabet.