Gomidas Keumurdjian

Gomidas Keumurdjian was born in Constantinople, the son of an Armenian priest. He studied under a learned Vardapet and, before being ordained a Deacon, was married at about the age of twenty and eventually had seven children.[1] Like his father, he too became a parish priest of the Armenian Apostolic Church and was stationed at the Church of St. George in Galata.

There was, with the encouragement of French Jesuit and Capuchin missionaries, a movement within the various Oriental Orthodox Churches which favored reunion with Rome. In 1694, at the age of forty, he and his family converted to the Armenian Catholic Church.[2]

Meanwhile, the steady growth of the Eastern Catholic Churches ultimately triggered an intensive anti-Catholic religious persecution by the Ottoman State at the insistence of the hierarchs of the Oriental Orthodox Churches. This was escalated against Ottoman Armenians who were Catholic quite radically after Avedik I, the recently deposed Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople, was abducted in 1706 by the orders of the Charles d'Argental, Comte de Fériol, the French ambassador to the Sublime Porte. Meanwhile, Patriarch Avedik, who has since been proposed as a suspect for the famous Man in the Iron Mask, was smuggled to Marseilles and then imprisoned at Mont-Saint-Michel and in the Bastille[3][4] for lèse majesté against King Louis XIV.[5]

Meanwhile, the Comte de Fériol repeatedly sent warnings that Ter Gomidas' life was in danger and offered to help him and his family escape the Ottoman Empire. Based on his own dreams and those reported to him by others, however, Ter Gomidas believed that it was God's will for him to remain at his parish ministry in Galata, even if it meant his own martyrdom.

On the evening of 23 October 1707 (according to the Julian Calendar) or 3 November 1707 (according to the Gregorian Calendar), Ter Gomidas was arrested by the newly appointed Patriarch[6] Hovhannes VII, who also ordered the arrests of several Armenian bishops, forty priests, and one hundred eighty laity.[7]

Along with eight other Armenian priests suspected of conversion to Catholicism, Ter Gomidas was brought to trial before an Armenian millet court for treason against the Sultan and disturbing the Armenian people's peace by becoming "Franks". Ter Gomidas, acting as, "spokesman for the group, asserted that they had indeed become Catholics, but not Franks. Catholicism meant religion, not nationality. His logic failed to convince the court and he and the eight others were taken to the court of a Turkish Qadi and there presented as traitors."[8]

The Qadi was at first reluctant to proceed with the case, until Patriarch Hovhannes also accused Ter Gomidas of secretly baptizing large numbers of Muslims and then arranging with the Comte de Fériol to smuggle them out of the Ottoman Empire so that they could practice their new faith openly. In response, Ter Gomidas was sentenced to death for treason against Sultan Ahmet III and for violating the precepts of Sharia Law governing apostasy. As was customary in the Ottoman Empire at the time, the Qadi offered Ter Gomidas and his eight codefendants a full pardon and their freedom in return for their immediate conversion to Islam. Although his eight codefendants immediately agreed, Ter Gomidas refused, saying, "I will not exchange my gold for your copper."[9]

Accompanied by his wife and children and a crowd of three thousand witnessed, Ter Gomidas was led on 5 November 1707 to the crossroads called Parmak Kapu, in the Samatya quarter of Istanbul, and ordered to kneel. He did so, facing Jerusalem, much to the dismay of the crowd, who called for him to turn and face Mecca instead. When the executioner approached with a drawn sword and also urged Ter Gomidas to save his life through conversion to Islam, Ter Gomidas replied, "No, do your work", and began reciting the Nicene Creed in the Classical Armenian liturgical language. His prayer only ceased when he was beheaded.[10][11]

After his death, Ter Gomidas was buried in the Armenian cemetery of Constantinople, where a mnemósynon was offered for him by Greek Orthodox priests of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, because no Armenian Catholic priest dared to come out of hiding to do so. His body was later re-exhumed and taken for veneration to the Jesuit novitiate at Lyons, where it was lost during the Reign of Terror.[12]

According to Donald Attwater, until the Armenian Genocide destroyed the historically large Armenian Catholic community living in Istanbul, the anniversary of Blessed Gomidas' martyrdom was commemorated every year with a religious profession to the site of his death.

On 1929, Pope Pius XI beatified Gomidas Keumurdjian as the Blessed and his feast day is celebrated every year on 5 November.[13]

One of his sons was Jean de Carbognano (c.1706-1763), who, after becoming an orphan, was taken in and educated by Latin Rite missionnaires. He entered the service of the Kingdom of Naples as a drogman. His own son, Cosimo de Carbognano (1749-1807), entered the service of the Kingdom of Naples and later of the King of Spain and became Knight of the Order of the Golden Spur. He published in Latin the principles of Turkish grammar for the use of Catholic missionaries in the Ottoman Empire.[14]

"In Constantinople, Blessed Gomidas Keumurdjan (Cosma da Carbognano), priest and martyr, who, father of a family, born and ordained in the Armenian Church, suffered a lot for having maintained and propagated firmly the Catholic faith professed by the Council of Chalcedon and he finally died beheaded while reciting the Nicene Creed." (Roman Martyrology}[15]