For generations of Armenians, prayer scrolls (hmayil) are a tangible connection to the past, and to the rich liturgical tradition which has underpinned the Armenian Apostolic Church, which stakes a claim to be the oldest in Christendom. In the grand scheme of things, however, the tradition is a recent one, appearing only in the Seventeenth Century AD. The scrolls themselves are well-known from various Christian and Islamic contexts, where they were often worn about one’s person as a talisman or healing charm. In Ethiopian Orthodoxy, for example, scrolls are used in the banishment of demons, the exorcism of which is hoped to bring an end to illnesses and misfortunes. In the Armenian context, prayer scrolls – more properly, phylacteries – were also worn as amulet to protect their owners from a variety of ills and dangers, by invoking various saints. Such scrolls are replete both with text and image, with the two reinforcing each other by self-reference. The text, divided between Biblical extracts, prayers, and magico-religious incantations, is a remarkable glimpse into the folk-religious beliefs of Armenians, whose millennia of tradition informed and shaped the prayer scrolls as they are found today.

This extraordinary prayer scroll is over five metres long - an exceptional length for an Armenian scroll - formed of fourteen individual leaves pasted together to create a single surface on which the scribe could write, and on which the remarkable illuminations could be added. The scrolln begins with a cartouche containing an image of the Virgin Mary cradling the child Jesus, depicted with expressions of religious awe, and with clothes of vibrant orange to contrast the teal blue background. The second, an angel depicted with six wings, evokes the role of angelic messengers both in informing the world of the birth of Christ, and as intercessors between the living and divine realms, as appropriate for a scroll which implies such intercession. The floral arrangement in the next miniature originates in the pre-Christian Zoroastrian tradition, which informed the rich array of botanical motifs in Armenian Christian art. The images of further actors of note in the Biblical story – the archangel Michael, St John the Baptist, the Apostle St Peter, St John the Evangelist – are interweaved with images peculiar to Armenian Christianity, including St Sargis ‘the General’ on horseback slaying a dragon (vishap), the first Primate of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Gregory the Illuminator, and a portrait of the Catholicos St Nerses seated on a throne, whose prayer, known by its first line ‘in faith, I confess’, concludes the scroll. At the conclusion of the prayer, a memorialisation invokes the prayer scroll to protect Simon, his wife Mariam, and their sons, and informs us that the copyist of this scroll was Martiros, in the city of Mush in Turkey.

The texts are the common collection of prayers and intercessions, invocations for the protection of the owners, and all kinds of diseases and ailments. The contents include:

An invocation addressed to the Virgin Mary.
A remembrance of the Archangel Michael. ‘the heavens opened and the angels descended…’
An invocation of the Holy Signs, ‘the Holy Cross be our shield…’
An invocation to the holy prophets, beginning with St John the Evangelist.
An invocation of the Holy Apostles, Saints Paul and Peter.
An invocation of the Holy Kings, beginning with the Roman Emperor-Saint Constantine.
A prayer against wars.
A prayer for the ligature of the tongue.
John 1:1, etc.: ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…’
An invocation of the warriors of Jesus Christ, St Sargis and his son Martiros, the slayers of dragons.
An invocation of the ascetics, beginning with St Antony.
An invocation of the Holy Virgins, beginning with St Varvarieay.
An invocation of the Holy Patriarchs, beginning with St Gregory the Illuminator.
The prayer of St Grigor of Narek, which begins ‘Son of the Living God, glorified…’
Warding of the evil spirit Gir Tepghi, who causes illness to newborns, invoking the Saints Peter and Paul.
The prayer of the Patriarch St Nerses, beginning ‘In faith, I confess…’
The memorialisation.