Cataloging is now complete for the manuscript collection of the Katʻoghikosutʻiwn Hayotsʻ Metsi Tann Kilikioy (the Catholicosate of the Great House of Cilicia); this collection of 239 manuscripts is now fully digitized, cataloged, and accessible through HMML Reading Room. This collection represents a rare survival from one of the most volatile centers of Armenian Christianity. These manuscripts bear witness to a world lost and destroyed during and in the aftermath of the Armenian Genocide of 1915.

When the Cilician Catholicosate in southeastern Adana, Turkey, was forcibly and abruptly vacated in 1921, only a handful of its manuscripts escaped destruction. Survivors carried these artifacts to Aleppo, Syria, then to Anṭilyās, Lebanon, where the Catholicosate reestablished itself in exile in 1930. There, in the spirit of rebuilding Armenian religious and cultural life, a new repository was born--one that would come to hold an exceptionally rich array of illuminated and illustrated manuscripts, with works dating as far back as the 9th and 10th centuries. Between 2004 and 2005, HMML digitized these artifacts, preserving the knowledge and art they contain in digital format. Now online access makes them available to the world.

Beyond its handful of Cilician holdings from Sis, Turkey, the Anṭilyās collection preserves the histories of at least three other Armenian communities from Turkey and Cyprus.

1. Cyprus: 69 manuscripts originated from the vibrant Surb Astvatsatsin Church (St. Holy Mother of God) in Nicosia and the Surb Makar Monastery. These manuscripts, copied or preserved in Cyprus—including those once housed in the now-occupied Monastery of St. Makar and the medieval Church of the Holy Mother of God — were first cataloged by Fr. Nersēs Akinean, and published by the Mkhitarist Press in Vienna in 1961.
2. Euphrates College (Kharberd/Elazığ, Turkey): Several manuscripts trace their provenance to the library of this once-active Armenian educational and cultural center, destroyed in the early 20th century.
3. The Yovhannēs Mkrian Collection: The second-largest portion of the Antelias holdings derives from the private library of Fr. Yovhannes Mkrian (1831-1909), a priest, intellectual, and delegate of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Born in Partizak, he served as vicar of the Patriarchate and, in 1878, traveled to London as part of diplomatic efforts surrounding the “Armenian Question.” In 1932, his manuscript collection, rescued after the Genocide, found a permanent and secure home in Anṭilyās.

Together, these materials form a comprehensive record of Armenian intellectual, artistic, and liturgical life from the 9th through the 19th centuries. The manuscripts include illuminated Gospels, Psalters, Lectionaries, Yaysmawurkʻ, Mashtotsʻ, Zhamagirkʻ, Sharaknotsʻ, and Kʻanonagirkʻ, among others. Notably, ACC 00164, a 9th- or 10th-century Gospel written in Erkatʻagir (“iron script”), includes a colophon dated 1428 (877 A.C.), noting its rebinding at the Monastery of Argelan (Van)--a tangible link to medieval Armenian scribal networks and rich Christian life in the Lake Van region. Each record in HMML Reading Room now links directly to the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation-sponsored 1984 catalog by Anoushavan Vardapet Tanielian, allowing researchers to trace manuscripts' histories, contexts, and connections across centuries and geographies. View now