Grigor Magistros

Who was Grigor Magistros?

Grigor Magistros was an Armenian prince, linguist, scholar and public functionary. A layman of the princely Pahlavuni family that claimed descent from the dynasty established by St. Gregory the Illuminator, he was the son of the military commander Vasak Pahlavuni. After the Byzantine Empire annexed the Kingdom of Ani, Gregory went on to serve as the governor of the province of Edessa. During his tenure he worked actively to suppress the Tondrakians, a breakaway Christian Armenian sect that the Armenian and Byzantine Churches both labeled heretics. He studied both ecclesiastical and secular literature, Syriac as well as Greek. He collected all Armenian manuscripts of scientific or philosophical value that were to be found, including the works of Anania Shirakatsi, and translations from Callimachus, Andronicus and Olympiodorus. He translated several works of Plato — The Laws, the Eulogy of Socrates, Euthyphro, Timaeus and Phaedo. Many ecclesiastics of the period were his pupils.

Foremost among his writings are the "Letters," which are 80 in number, and which shed light upon the political and religious problems of the time.