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The peaceful life, which commenced in Karabakh after the Persians’ defeat in the first Russo-Persian war, contributed to the increase of the material well-being of the families of Yuzbashi Atabekovs, Armenian meliks who were engaged in recovering their native village Kasapet (Kusapat). Ephrem, His Holiness the Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians, was forced to leave for that village as a result of the Persians’ persecutions. Leaving the Patriarchal See of Etchmiadzin, Ephrem had to seek protection and patronage within the Russian borders. The events are described in the fundamental research ‘The First Volunteers of Karabakh,’ (Tiflis, 1902) by Vasily Aleksandrovich Potto, General of the Russian army and a military historian referred to as the ‘Nestor’ of the history of the Caucasus.

“That respectable old man had a bitter life. He was called to the Patriarchal See after the great passion bearer Daniel’s death in 1808, the epoch of Count Gudovich’s siege of Erivan Fortress. Despite Abbas Mirza’s support, he was subjected to the Persians’ endless insults, who were breaking into the Holy Monastery, nagging at the Patriarch and torturing the monks like lions and tigers, as described by Archbishop Nerses,” Potto writes.

Greedy Mamet Khan saw nothing but a source of wealth in Etchmiadzin Cathedral and harassed the Armenian clergymen, ignoring the Persian government’s firmans. As a result, the Cathedral was left ‘utterly robbed.’

“The patriarchal rank’s humiliation reached to the point that when the Patriarch, wearing an order of merit granted by the Russian sovereign, visited sardar on Novruz day in 1821 to congratulate him on the holiday, the infuriated khan declared that if he again came to him with Russian orders, he would be hung on their ribbons,” Potto writes. He notes that this was the very reason why Ephrem was forced to flee to Karabakh through Nakhijevan ridge.

Still, the sudden arrival of an important religious leader like the Patriarch in the Russian territories not only was fraught with political consequences, but also threatened to bring ‘an even bitterer fate to Holy Etchmiadzin.’ Subsequently, Yermolov had to ask His Holiness to go back in order to calm down the Persians.

Ephrem answered him, “The persecutions, unlashed by the Erivani Khan against me in my old ages and on the Patriarchal See, made me place my last hope in the Russian Sovereign’s mercy.  Do not let our hope turn vain, as it was for that hope that I, a seventy-year-old man, overcame various difficulties passing mountains and gorges in such a winter to put myself in Your Majesty’s patronage. After all, where would it be more proper to go or what government to rely on?”

Yermolov found it necessary to inform Count Nesselrode, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Empire, about Ephrem the Patriarch’s arrival in the Russian territories and about his wish to leave for Tiflis. In his letter to the minister, Yermolov wrote that he did not find it possible to comply with Ephrem’s wish given that the Persian government, inclined to be suspicious towards the Russians, could conclude that it were the Russians who had called the Patriarch and that they were hiding ‘some important intentions.’ According to Potto, ‘in Petersburg, the matter was viewed the way it saw Yermolov.’ As a result, Ephrem was told that ‘the Russian government cannot and does not have the right to have him inside its borders with a patriarch’s rank, but can only consider him a simple monk with the respective rank, allowing him to live where he wished and treating him with due respect.’

Fearing the Persian government’s attacks, Ephrem decided to quit his patriarchal rank. He prepared himself to spend the rest of his life in Surb Nshan, an Armenian monastery in Haghpat. He sent on his way there on 17 August 1822, which ‘rose a big confusion in Erivani. Yermolov explained this by saying that with the Catholicos’ departure from Persia, the incomes of the Etchmiadzin Monastery, which flowed there from different places, were exhausted, and accordingly the incomes of the resources to satisfy the sardar’s greed.’

Erivani khan demanded that Yermolov brought Ephrem back; otherwise, he threatened to elect and put a new patriarch on his seat. Yermolov answered to the khan, “Your High Dignity, you have certainly forgotten that appointing a patriarch depends on my Emperor as well, among others.

While, electing is one of the rights of all the Armenian people, who live not only in Persia.” As Potto has it, Yermolov’s argument was so convincing that ‘sardar fell silent.’ However, there was a risk that sardar could use violence in order to get what he wanted: he could send a gang to Haghpat Monastery to kidnap the Patriarch from there and bring him forcibly back to Etchmiadzin.
“Those fears were so serious that Knyaz Sevasamidze, the colonel in command of the troops on Erivani border, was ordered to take up all the measures of precaution, surround the Patriarch with faithful people and block any Persian’s way to Haghpat,” Potto writes.

The relative calm established in the region was again disturbed in summer of 1826, when the ‘Persian hordes’ suddenly broke into the Russian territories without declaring war and became a threat first of all for the defenceless Armenian population.

Vasily Potto’s research ‘The First Volunteers of Karabakh in the Period of Establishment of the Russian Dominion (Melik-Vani and Hakop-Yuzbashi Atabekovs),’ dedicated to the history of the Atabekovs’ family, is based on various sources. This enabled the author to describe more precisely the history and images of the brave Armenian volunteers from the ancient Armenian dynasty of Atabekyans, as well as to cover the period of the annexation of Eastern Armenia into the Russian Empire and the historical events of the first quarter of the 19th century.

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