Mxitar Sebastaci was born in 1676 in Armenia to a merchant family who wanted him to continue the family business, but from a young age he felt called to a religious life. After several attempts to enter monastic life against his family's wishes, he was finally allowed at age 15 to join a nearby monastery. There he changed his name to Mekhitar and saw that monastic life in Armenia had declined. He traveled in search of better religious education and was inspired by Western Catholic orders. In 1701 in Constantinople, he founded the Mekhitarist Order to educate Armenians, and the order later moved multiple times before settling in Venice in 1715 on the island