The concept of penance according to the “Yačaxapatum”

In The Concept of Penance according to the Yačaxapatum, Mirosław Cichoń examines the understanding of penance in one of the most significant homiletic collections of the ancient Armenian tradition, traditionally attributed to Gregory the Illuminator. The study has a twofold aim: to clarify the textual history, dating, and possible authorship of the Yačaxapatum, and to define the theological, liturgical, and spiritual profile of penance that emerges from its discourses. The methodology combines philological and textual inquiry, a survey of direct and indirect manuscript tradition, comparison of editions and translations, historical-comparative analysis of Armenian sources from the fifth to the seventh century, and theological interpretation of anthropological, hamartiological, and sacramental themes. The results indicate that the work underwent a complex redactional history: its original nucleus probably consisted of twenty-one discourses, did not include discourse XXIII, and preserved a different form of the first two discourses; this nucleus is most plausibly attributable to an anonymous author active between the final decades of the fifth century and the first half of the sixth. The analysis also reveals substantial affinities with Syriac and Antiochene Christianity, as well as with the earliest Armenian literature. Doctrinally, penance is presented as a second baptism, situated within the relationship between baptism, Eucharist, and Lent, and enacted through almsgiving, fasting, prayer, penitential tears, and, in certain contexts, animal sacrifices. The model of the ten degrees of penance is central: it leads from contrition and confession of sins to Eucharistic readmission. The study concludes that the Yačaxapatum offers an early and relatively systematic witness to Armenian penance and that a new critical edition of the text is necessary.