350th Birth of Mechitar of Sebaste - Armenia

Mechitar, born Manuk Petrosean, was born on 7 February 1676 in Sebaste, in present-day Turkey. Raised in the faith of the Armenian Apostolic Church, from a young age he showed a particular inclination towards the spiritual life and an ardent desire to contribute to the religious and cultural revival of his people, who at the time were dispersed throughout the Ottoman Empire and Persia. After his initial studies at the Surb Nshan Monastery in Sebaste, he travelled to Constantinople, where he gathered around him a group of young men eager to embrace monastic life. His project was ambitious: to unite the depth of the Armenian tradition with a solid cultural education, opening it to dialogue with the great Christian tradition of the West. With this aim, in 1701 he founded the Mekhitarist Congregation, inspired by the Rule of Saint Benedict. The following year, due to persecution, he fled with his fellow monks to the Morea (present-day Peloponnese), which was then under the rule of the Republic of Venice. In 1715, as the Ottoman advance progressed, he found permanent refuge in Venice, where the Venetian Republic granted him and his monks the island of San Lazzaro degli Armenians. There, Mechitar founded the celebrated monastery, which became a flourishing centre for the study, translation and dissemination of Armenian culture. Mechitar died on 27 April 1749. Today, the Congregation is active through monasteries and cultural centres in Venice, Rome, Vienna, Beirut and the United States, bearing witness to his role as a bridge between East and West, and between faith and culture. Mechitar of Sebaste remains, to this day, one of the most significant figures for having devoted his religious vocation to the valuable service of the Church, culture and the memory of an entire people. The stamp features a portrait of the Servant of God Mechitar of Sebaste, with the Monastery of San Lazzaro degli Armenians in Venice, which he founded in 1715, depicted in the background.