Valentina Calzolari to Speak on Martyrdom of Rhipsimian Virgins at NAASR

Dr. Valentina Calzolari, Professor of Armenian Studies at the University of Geneva, will present an illustrated lecture entitled “Dying to Bring the Armenians Close to God: A New Reading of the Martyrdom of the Rhipsimian Virgins,” on Thursday, May 1, 2014, at 7:30 p.m. at the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR), 395 Concord Avenue, Belmont, Mass. This lecture is co-sponsored by the Mashtots Chair in Armenian Studies at Harvard University, the Armenian International Women’s Association (AIWA), and NAASR.

Valentina Calzolari
Valentina Calzolari

The history of the conversion of Armenia by Agathangelos (5th c.) is focused on the core idea that the Armenians are a chosen people and that they are inscribed in the providential plan of God. For its author, writing Armenian history was not only a way to build a collective memory and to give a coherent portrait of the past, but also a means to renew the covenant between the Armenians and God. In this account, two martyrdoms are at the origin of the shift of the Armenians from the “mist of darkness” of paganism to Christianity: the martyrdom of Gregory the Illuminator, a martyr who did not die, but who “entered the gates of death and returned by the will of God”; and the martyrdom of some consecrated women, the Rhipsimian virgins. According to the text, by the shedding of the blood of these virgin women, “the land of Armenia has been visited” and “the Armenians were brought close to God.”

This lecture will attempt to understand the complex relationship between the valorization of female virginity in Late Antiquity, martyrdom, and collective salvation. The bodies of the Rhipsimian virgins are called “Temples of God” and their murder by the king Trdat is considered as the profanation of a sacred space, the punishment of which was the loss, for the king, of his human nature.

Valentina Calzolari Bouvier is Professor of Armenian Literature and Language at the University of Geneva, where she established the first Swiss chair in Armenian Studies, offering a full curriculum in both ancient and modern (western and eastern) Armenian languages and literatures, at the BA, MA, and PhD levels. She is the current president of the Association Internationale des Etudes Arméniennes and of the Association pour l’Etude de la Littérature Apocryphe Chrétienne, and is a Visiting Scholar at Harvard’s Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations.

More information about this program may be had by calling (617) 489-1610, faxing (617) 484-1759, e-mailing hq@naasr.org, or writing to NAASR, 395 Concord Ave., Belmont, MA 02478.

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