• Armenian Catholic Clergy Institute
  Bzommar, Lebanon
• Bibliothèque Orientale at the Université Saint-Joseph
  Beirut, Lebanon
• Our Lady of Balamand Monastery and University
  Tripoli, Lebanon
• Armenian Apostolic Catholicosate of the Great House of Cilicia
  Antelias, Lebanon
• Deir Mar Yuhanna al-Shuwayr (“Monastery of Saint John the Baptist at Shweir”)
  Khonchara, Lebanon
• Monastery of Saint George at Deir-esh-Shir
  Jounieh, Lebanon
• Université du Saint-Esprit
  Kaslik, Lebanon
• Deir el-Kreim, Lebanese Maronite Missionary Order
  Jounieh, Lebanon

• Priory of Rome
• National Archives of Malta

• Melkite Greek-Catholic Archdiocese of Aleppo
  Aleppo, Syria
• Syriac Orthodox Archdiocese of Aleppo
  Aleppo, Syria
• Syriac Catholic Archdiocese of Aleppo
  Aleppo, Syria
• Syriac Orthodox Archdiocese of Homs
  Homs, Syria

• The Stefanyk Library of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
  L’viv, Ukraine
• L’viv Historical Museum
  L’viv, Ukraine

• Saint Thomas Christian Manuscript Collections
  Kerala, India

• Austria/Germany/Switzerland
• British Isles
• Iberia
• Italy
• Malta
• South Africa
• Sweden
• Ethiopia

Armenian Catholic Clergy Institute
Bzommar, Lebanon
1800 Armenian Manuscripts

 
Our Lady of Bzommar Monastery. Bzommar, Lebanon. © HMML 2005

The historical origins of the Armenian Catholic Church were in the close contacts between the Armenian Apostolic Church in the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia and the Latin Crusaders who passed through the region on their way to the Holy Land in the 12th century. The first alliance between the Latin Church and the Armenian King of Cilicia was made in 1198 and lasted until the Ottoman conquests in 1375. The scattered Armenian Catholic communities that survived were later unified under an Armenian Catholic Patriarch in Lebanon in 1742. Today there are Armenian Catholic communities throughout the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas.

The Armenian Catholic Clergy Institute at Our Lady of Bzommar Monastery was founded in 1749 and contains one of the great Armenian manuscript collections in the world, as well as significant holdings of Arabic manuscripts. Many of these manuscripts were brought to Lebanon from Istanbul and other locations in Turkey at the time of the Armenian Genocide in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. HMML has made a digitized version of the printed manuscript catalogue of the Bzommar collection available on Vivarium, HMML’s website for digital images.

Learn more about the Armenian Catholic Church.

14th century Armenian Book of the Gospels, frontispiece to the Gospel of Luke. Ms. Bzommar 18, fols. 128v-129r.

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Manuscript Resources at HMML

The Armenian Catholic Clergy Institute of Bzommar's manuscript collection is described in detail in an Armenian-language printed catalogue. Use the button below to access an online version of this catalogue:

Sample images of the Bzommar manuscripts can be browsed. Here's how to decipher the image filenames:
EXAMPLE:  bzbz_00003_004_v
"bzbz" is the code for the Bzommar project, "00003" is the manuscript shelfmark, "004_v" means that the image is of page 4, verso. Shelfmarks should refer to manuscript numbers in the scanned catalogue.

Search by Shelfmark (Manuscript Number)
If you've found a particular manuscript number in the printed catalogue, you can enter it in the box below and press "go" to retrieve sample images from that particular work if samples from that manuscript have been posted on Vivarium.

Syntax for Searching Shelfmarks:
Manuscript numbers must be preceded by the project code "BZBZ" followed by a space. Enter numbers with leading zeroes so that the number is in five-digit form. Example: manuscript number 7 would be entered as BZBZ 00007, manuscript number 120 would be entered as BZBZ 00120.

Catalogue is in Armenian. Manuscripts are in Armenian and Arabic. More information can be found here.

Finding Manuscripts from This Project in OLIVER, HMML's Online Manuscript Database

To find manuscript records from this collection in OLIVER, go to:
OLIVER Manuscript Search
and use the "City" drop-down menu to select the city, "Bzommar."

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