Changes in the Organization of the Structure of the Church in the Armenian Provinces of Byzantium after the Arab Conquest (From the Middle of the Seventh to the Eighth Century)

The aim of this article is to reconstruct the structure of the church in the western lands of Greater Armenia and the whole of Lesser Armenia. On the eve of their conquest by Muslim Arabs, these lands were part of the Byzantine Empire and belonged either to the Orthodox Patriarchates of Constantinople and Antioch or to the Armenian Catholicosate of Dvin. After their conquest in the middle of the seventh century, they went to the Caliphate. According to the author's calculations, at the beginning of the eighth century, three large dioceses of the Syrian Jacobite Church were created on these lands. This Church had a see in Antioch, and like the Armenian Church, firmly adhered to the non-Chalcedonian position and fell under the rule of Muslim Arabs. Three more Syrian church units were created in the Armenian lands at the end of the eighth century. Four of the six Jacobite eparchies occupied the former canonical territories of the Orthodox Church with Constantinople and Antioch as their sees, and the other two occupied the canonical territories of the Armenian Catholicosate in the regions of Arzan and Khlat/Xlat'.