A Man of Two Worlds: Pedros Bedik in Iran, 1670-1675 Pedros Bedik and Colette Ouahes and Willem Floor
Throughout history, many an ambitious diplomatic initiative has slipped into obscurity, but few have been so thoroughly forgotten as the efforts of a young man named Pedros Bedik to foster an alliance between two great seventeenth century powers, Persia and the Holy Roman Empire, against the mighty Ottoman Empire that lay between them. As a related enterprise, he worked to end the separation between the Western and Eastern versions of Christianity. In 1678, he published a book—written in Latin, with a Persian introduction—intended to explain the East to the West and thus further those aims. Never reprinted or translated, it has remained virtually unknown until now. Bedik was raised in an Armenian, Christian community in Ottoman-ruled Aleppo. At the age of 16, he was sent to Rome by his mot...
