Ester Petrosyan

Ester Petrosyan is a codicologist and historian specializing in Syriac, Armenian, and Christian Arabic manuscript traditions, with a particular focus on Garshuni writing practices and early modern multilingualism. Her MA thesis examined a seventeenth-century trilingual Syriac–Arabic–Armenian Garshuni manuscript (MS Cairo Syriac 11) from the Franciscan collection in Cairo, containing the Syriac–Arabic dictionary of Eliyah of Nisibis supplemented with Armenian Garshuni equivalents. She studied the manuscript from both linguistic and historical perspectives.
As a researcher at the Matenadaran (Yerevan), she has worked extensively on Christian Arabic and Arabic Garshuni manuscripts and has published catalogues of these collections. She is currently involved in a study that scrutinizes early apocalyptic literature, with particular attention to the representation of the Body and Soul Legend in medieval Armenian literature. 

Education

• MA, Central European University
• BA, Yerevan State University

Current Supervisor(s)

• Amir Harrak
• Adrien Zakar

Dissertation Title

Armenian Garshuni Manuscripts and Multilingual Practices in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire

Publications

• "On the Genre and Terminology of Revelatory Texts," in Vem Pan-Armenian Journal, vol. 3 (91), (Yerevan, 2025), pp. I-XXX.
• Catalogue of the Arabic Garshuni Manuscripts and Fragments of the Matenadaran (Yerevan), CSCO vol. 708, SUBSIDIA 148, (Leuven, 2025).
• “The Revelation Attributed to Gregory the Illuminator,” in Banber Matenadarani (Herald of the Matenadaran), vol. 36 (Yerevan, 2023), pp. 212-250.
• "The Life of Barsawmo the Northerner in the Armenian and Syriac traditions", in Matenagirq hayots (Armenian classical authors) vol. 22, 12th century (Antelias, 2023), pp. 689-761.
• “Christian Arabic and Arabic Garshuni Manuscripts of the Matenadaran (Yerevan),” in Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies, no. 22 (Piscataway, 2022), pp. 64-75.
• Khecho M. and Petrosyan E., Catalogue of the Christian Arabic Manuscripts of the Matenadaran (Yerevan, 2021).
• “Manuscript Cairo Syriac 11 as a Gateway to Understanding the Seventeenth-Century Environment in Diarbakir,” in Banber Matenadarani (Herald of the Matenadaran) No 24 (Yerevan, 2017), pp. 70-76.

Teaching Experience

• Course Instructor: NMC270H1 Christian of the Middle East 
• Teaching Assistant: NML110Y1 Elementary Standard Arabic 
• Teaching Assistant: NMC103H1 The Islamic World
• Teaching Assistant: NMC252H1 Hebrew Bible