Until his death, which occurred in 1837, he was the friend of the missionaries, and had much intercourse with them; though he never acquired the courage distinctly to avow himself an evangelical man.

Up to that time, however, there had been no open persecution of the followers of Christ, and consequently no formal separation of the evangelical brethren from the Armenian community.

All the first converts in Constantinople, and many of the later ones, were from his school.
There can be no doubt that, owing to these and other less apparent causes, there was a preparation in the Armenian mind of Turkey for the reception of divine truth, before the arrival of the American missionaries.

Though more evident at the capital than in the provinces, there seems to have been some degree of this preparation wherever Armenians were found.

In this respect, there was a marked difference among that people, as compared with Jews and Greeks.