Saint Grégoire l'Illuminateur dans l'église de Tigran Honenc' (Saint Gregory the Illuminator in the Church of Tigran Honents)

Rapti, Ioanna · 2025

Rapti gives a narratological reading of the St Gregory the Illuminator fresco cycle in the thirteenth-century church at Ani founded by the wealthy citizen Tigran Honents. She analyses how the compositions are arranged, how the cycle is structured, and how the episodes vary in size, all in service of constructing Gregory's sanctity. Four phases emerge: the torture; the imprisonment in the pit and the escape; the vision and acclamation, paralleled with the miracle of St Nino; and Gregory's ministry, fulfilled in his ascetic death. Because the cycle builds to a climax around the church door, she argues it is not a plodding transposition of Agathangelos into pictures but a creative appropriation of the hagiographic tradition of the founders of Caucasian Christianity.

Citation checked against the publisher's record on 2026-07-13.