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PIROMALLI

Volume 17 · 266 words · 1842 Edition

Paul, a Dominican of Calabria, was sent as a missionary to the East. He remained a long time in Armenia, where he had the happiness to bring back to the church many schismatics and Eutychians, and even the patriarch himself, who had before thrown every obstacle in his way. He afterwards passed into Georgia and Persia, then into Poland, in quality of nuncio to Pope Urban VIII., in order to appease the disturbances which had been occasioned there by the disputes of the Armenians, who were very numerous in that country. Piromalli united them in the profession of the same faith, and the observance of the same ceremonies. On his return to Italy he was taken by some corsairs, who carried him prisoner to Tunis. As soon as he was ransomed he went to Rome, and gave an account of his mission to the pope, who conferred upon him some signal marks of his esteem. His holiness intrusted him with the revision of an Armenian bible, and sent him again into the East, where he was promoted, in 1655, to the bishopric of Nashirvan. After having governed that church for nine years, he returned to Italy, and took charge of the church of Bassignano, where he died three years afterwards, in 1667. His charity, zeal, and other virtues, did honour to the episcopal office. There are extant of his writings, 1. Some works of Controversy and Theology; 2. Two Dictionaries, the one a Latin-Persian, and the other an Armenian-Latin; 3. An Armenian Grammar; and, 4. A Directory, which is of great use in correcting Armenian books.