Mihr (Mher) or Mitra is the principal deity of the pantheon of gods in ancient Armenia. In the Armenian pagan pantheon, Mihr (Mitra or Mithras in Latin) was considered the supreme deity. Mihr was the personification of the Illuminating Rays of the Sun.
The main temple of Mihr/Mitra was located in the city of Bagaran, in the Derdjan region of Upper Armenia, one of the provinces of Greater Armenia.
The earliest mention of the worship of Mitra dates back to the period of the Hurrian-Mitanni Armenian kingdom. It was found in cuneiform tablets from the Hittite capital Hattusa during the 1907 archaeological excavations.
In these Hittite cuneiforms, some of the known Armenian gods and goddesses belonging to the Armenian pantheon of gods of the Mitanni state are mentioned. The Hittite king Suppiluliuma, who reigned between 1344 and 1322 BC, ordered the creation of a record of a peace treaty between him and the Armenian king Shattiwaza, who ruled around 1350-1320 BC, representing the Hittite and Armenian kingdoms, respectively.
Suppiluliuma appeals to the great gods of Armenia, and particularly to Mitra, to bless and protect the treaty of friendship and peace between the kingdoms of the Hittites and Mitanni. This treaty, dated to the 14th century BC, is the earliest record mentioning Mitra as one of the supreme gods of Armenia.
Interestingly: This mention of Mitra predates by about a thousand years the references to the god Mitra in Iranian inscriptions and Indian Vedas. Some Indian and Iranian scholars mistakenly attribute Mitra to their deities; however, as we see, the earliest record mentioning Mitra as a god dates to the 14th century BC, where Mitra is described as an inherently Armenian deity, holding a very special place in the Armenian national pantheon of gods.
It is worth noting that Mitra is not mentioned in the Gathas, the earliest sacred Zoroastrian texts attributed to Zoroaster himself. Moreover, Mitra is also not mentioned in the Yasna Haptanghaiti, the seven-stanza part of the Yasna liturgy, which is linguistically of the same age as the Gathas.
Many scholars note that the absence of any mentions (i.e., Zoroaster’s silence) of Mitra in these texts suggests that Zoroaster indeed rejected Mitra. This is further confirmed by the fact that in early Avestan writings, both the god Mihr-Mitra and the main Armenian goddess Anahit are called “daevas” or “false gods” or “demons” who should not be worshipped.
It is only in the fourth century BC that we first find a reference to Mitra in Iranian texts as a “positive” deity of the Solar Radiance in the inscription of the Achaemenid king Xerxes II Mnemon. The religion of Mitra, or Mithraism as it became known in the West, was soon to spread beyond Armenia, not only to the east towards Iran and India but also to the west.
Mithraic temples, known as Mithraeums, spread throughout the Roman Empire. This was mainly facilitated by Armenian aristocrats who, by that time, were already prominent generals in the Roman army.
A good example of this is the Armenian king Tiridates III, who, before his coronation, was an outstanding general in the Roman army. His close friend was Emperor Diocletian, who asked the Armenian king, a devoted follower of Mitra, to personally accept a combat challenge from the chief of the Goths.
Tiridates accepted the challenge and emerged victorious in the tournament. By the second century BC, Mithraism had practically become the state religion of the Roman Empire, and almost all Roman emperors during this time and until the adoption of Christianity in the fourth century AD were adherents of the Mithraic mysteries. Most of the rites and rituals of Mitra were simply adopted by the emerging Roman Catholic Church.
The eight rays (small pyramids) crowning the traditional crown of Armenian kings symbolize the rays of the Sun, representing Mitra, as well as the eight-pointed star surrounded by two eagles looking at it, which is also part of Mitra’s symbolism.
The Sun King symbolized the physical embodiment of the Sun God in the world, and the Armenian tiara symbolized the union of the spiritual and material worlds, represented by the crown and the silk-leather part of the diadem respectively (joined by the sacred band – the ribbon of glory).
The mysteries of the God Mitra, originating in Armenia in the second millennium BC, through the Roman Empire, were inherited and became the foundation of Western society and civilization as a whole. Many customs and societal norms are directly taken from Mithraism (a vivid example of this is the handshake, exchanged by the followers of Mitra, which today has become a common gesture of greeting around the world).
Many holidays we celebrate (including Christmas on December 25th) also trace back to Mithraism. These holidays were celebrated by Roman emperors and later by the Roman Catholic Church. The same applies to Christian masses held on Sundays.
The tradition of building temples directly in caves (where the mysteries of Mitra were performed) was continued by the Armenian Apostolic Church until the Middle Ages, as evidenced by the still-standing world-famous temple of Geghard. There are a total of 8 sacred centers of pagan Armenian gods and goddesses throughout Greater Armenia, with many beautiful temples in each of them.
Gevork Nazaryan, Historian
Excerpts taken from the book “Pre-Christian Gods of Armenia” (Glendale, 2007) by Hovik Nersisyan (1921-2009). Nersisyan is the author of many books and articles. He was a well-known scholar who, in 1991, for his contributions to Iranology, primarily for the study of the oldest surviving copy of the Avesta, became a full member of the New York Academy of Sciences.
Artatsolum
