According to the ‘historical’ accounts as written by Ագաթանգեղոս (Agathangelos), whose name translates to 'bearer of good news', Armenian christianity was founded on the brutal rape and atrocious dismembering of women’s bodies (more popularly known as ‘martyrs’).

In or around the year 300 A.D., Հռիփսիմե (Hripsime) -- a very beautiful woman who was rumoured to be of noble birth, escaped from a Roman monastery along with a group of thirty five female companions who identified as devout christian nuns. Hripsime was running from the advances of emperor Diocletian. Unable to handle her rejection, he asked one of his affiliates, Տրդատ Մեծ (a.k.a. Drtad the Great) -- the pagan king of Armenia at the time, for help with a search and rescue mission. Drtad’s soldiers eventually found the nuns hiding in an abandoned wine cave. But when king laid his big greedy eyes on Hripsime and immediately decided that he was going to marry her instead.
Hripsime was not interested either marriage or queendom, especially with a pagan king. Her heart belonged to Jesus Christ. She sought counsel from the leader of her group, Գայանե (Gayane) -- who told her to remain devoted to her faith and stand strong against the pagan king’s advances. When she rejected Drtad, he commanded his soldiers to viciously rape, torture, and dismember the bodies of all the nuns, including Hripsime and Gayane. Some time passed, and Drtad started to have horrible nightmares and became so ill that even the pagan priests were not able to cure him. Even his soldiers became sick. Suffering and desperate, he turned to his sister for help, who was rumoured to be secretly christian. She told Drtad that she dreamt of the man who would save him. He was willing to try anything, but the problem was that Drtad had thrown him in a pit about thirteen years ago.
That man used to be Drtad’s closest friend and advisor. His name was Գրիգոր (Krikor), and he was also a christian. It was rumoured that Krikor’s family was responsible for the death of Drtad’s father, and when he found out, he was livid. It is also possible that Drtad tried to force Krikor into converting to paganism, but of course Krikor refused -- which is why he was thrown to his death into a deep pit. An angel sent from god threw food and water into the pit so that Krikor would survive and spread christianity to the world.
Drtad was desperate to cure his illness, so he took Krikor out of the pit, and Krikor tells him that if he accepts Jesus Christ into his heart, all will be forgiven. And so Drtad becomes a christian, then officially declares the rest of Armenia as a christian nation. After Krikor becomes Գրիգոր Լուսաւորիչ (Gregory the Illuminator), he establishes himself as the first architect of hierarchy in the Armenian Church and takes on the role as first bishop and first church builder (Agathangelos, n.d.). Drtad and Krikor even collaborated on building a church in honour of Hripsime and Gayane. Both female martyrs were sainted. Those who refused to convert to christianity were not tolerated, as in they were killed or exiled.

The following is a retelling of the story of how Armenians converted from paganism to christianity; as told to me by my stepmother, Zabelle Berberian, during one of many visits to Saint Hripsime’s church in Armenia.