Арменското присъствие в Пловдив през средновековието (VIII–XIII в.)
The Armenian Presence in Plovdiv during the Middle Ages (8th –13th c.)

Summary/Abstract: In the multi-ethnic pattern of Plovdiv during the Middle Ages the Armenian had a constant and marked presence, testified in the sources mostly for the period 8th-13th c. They appeared in the town already in the middle of the 8th c. as a result of the resettlement policy of the Byzantine emperors who moved large masses of Anatolian heretics, including many Armenians. The emigration campaigns went on until the 10th c., and・ afterwards the sources report an Armenian population traditionally living in the town. Speaking about the Armenian present in medieval Plovdiv, one should bear in mind that this population, although of the same ethnic origin, was not united in a compact and homogeneous fashion as a community. In the large Bulgarian catholic community there was a considerably big group of Armenians who were the chief and original exponents of this teaching in the total mass of Anatolian immigrants. These Armenians lived in the community of the Bulgarian catholics who had their own quarter. In Plovdiv existed also a strong monophysite community of anti-Chalcedonian Armenians who obeyed the Catholicos in Cilicia and did not recognize the Chalcedonian decrees. They also lived in a quarter of their own with their own place of worship. These Armenians should not be identified with the Armenians among the Plovdiv catholics although in Constantinople they were also regarded as heretics, and the Orthodox Church made great efforts, in the same way as with respect to the Bulgarian catholics, to bring them in the bosom of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. The ethnic Armenians in Plovdiv also comprised a small group of their representatives, but confessionally they were bound to the Church of Constantinople, i.e. to the Chalcedonian decrees. These representatives were included in the imperial high dignitaries and the church elite and were gradually denationalized, becoming representatives of the Byzantine aristocracy.

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