[4] A part of the Armenian Hellenizing School and one of the few secular scholars in medieval Armenia, Anania was educated primarily by Tychicus, in Trebizond.

He composed science textbooks and the first known geographic work in classical Armenian (Ashkharhatsuyts),[5] which provides detailed information about Greater Armenia, Persia and the Caucasus (Georgia and Caucasian Albania).

Robert H. Hewsen noted in 1968 that Anania is widely believed to have been born between 595 and 600;[15] a quarter-century later he settled on c. 610 as a birthdate and 685 as the year he died.

[17] Sen Arevshatyan, James R. Russell, Edward G. Mathews, and Theo van Lint also concur with 610–685,[18][19][4][3] while Greenwood suggests c.

[4] He was the son of Yovhannes and was born in the village of Anania/Aneank’ (Անեանք) or in the town of Shirakavan (Yerazgavors),[23] in the canton of Shirak, in the central Armenian province of Ayrarat.

[4] Since his name is sometimes spelled as Shirakuni (Շիրակունի), Hewsen argued that he may have belonged to the house of the Kamsarakan or Arsharuni princes of Shirak and Arsharunik’, respectively.

[8][30] After first traveling to Theodosiopolis, then to the Byzantine-controlled province of Fourth Armenia (probably Martyropolis),[1] where he studied under the mathematician Christosatur for six months.

[1] He then left to find a better teacher and learned about Tychicus,[b] who was based at the monastery (or martyrium) of Saint Eugenios in Trebizond.

[38][c] Hacikyan et al. describe Anania as a "devout Christian and well versed in the Bible" who "made some attempts to reconcile science and Scripture.

"[43] S. Peter Cowe disagreed with Ashot G. Abrahamian's hypothesis that his name was "censored in the Middle Ages because of ecclesiastical disapproval" and argued that it is "more applicable to Soviet practice than that of the relatively tolerant Armenian and other eastern churches.

"[15] Anania is considered by modern scholars to be a representative of the Hellenizing School since many of his works were based on classical Greek sources.

[49][50] He was the first Armenian scholar to have "imported a set of scientific notions, and examples of their applications, from the Greek-speaking schools" into Armenia.

[53] Anania was also knowledgeable about native Armenian and Iranian cultural traditions;[8] several of his works provide important information on late Sassanian Iran.

"[54] Anania accepted the importance of experience, observation, rational practice and theory, and was influenced by the ideas of the 5th-century Neoplatonist philosopher Davit Anhaght (the Invincible), and Greek philosophers Thales of Miletus, Hippocrates, Democritus, Plato, Aristotle, Zeno of Citium, Epicurus, Ptolemy, Pappus of Alexandria, and Cosmas Indicopleustes.

[59] Anania accepted that the Earth is round, describing it as "like an egg with a spherical yolk (the globe) surrounded by a layer of white (the atmosphere) and covered with a hard shell (the sky).

"[38] He accurately explained solar and lunar eclipses, the phases of the Moon, and the structure of the Milky Way,[57] describing the latter as a "mass of dense but faintly luminous stars.

[3] Many of his works are believed to have been part of the K’nnikon (Քննիկոն, from "canon", Greek: Kanonikon), completed circa 666,[3][62] and used as the standard science textbook in medieval Armenia.

[4][63] Artashes Matevosyan termed it the first secular Armenian science textbook,[64] while Valentina Calzolari described it as a "monumental encyclopedic work.

"[65] Greenwood argued that the K’nnikon was a "fluid compilation, whose contents fluctuated over time, reflecting the interests and resources of different teachers and practitioners.

"[87] The Armenian Geography—as it is alternatively known—has been especially important for research into the history and geography of Greater Armenia, the Caucasus (Georgia and Caucasian Albania) and the Sasanian Empire,[8] which are all described in detail.

[97][98] The calendars of the Armenians, Romans, Hebrews, Syrians, Greeks, and Egyptians contain texts, while those of other peoples only have the names of months and their length.

He extensively used the work of Epiphanius of Salamis to present the system of weights used by the Greeks, Jews, and Syrians, and his own knowledge as well as other sources for those of the Armenians and Persians.

[103][104][105] The authorship of the "Book of the Six Thousand" (Vec‘ hazareak), the "most important Armenian magical text of the Middle Ages", has traditionally been attributed to Anania.

[55] In a 1037 letter, Grigor Magistros, a scholar from the Pahlavuni noble family, asked Catholicos Petros Getadardz for Anania's manuscripts of his K’nnikon, which were locked up at the catholicosate for centuries.

[116] In 1877 Kerovbe Patkanian published a collection of Anania's works in the original classical Armenian at St Petersburg University.

[117] Titled Sundry Studies (Մնացորդք բանից, Mnats’ordk’ banits’),[118] it is the first-ever print publication of his works.

"[134] Modern historians consider him as the greatest scientist of medieval Armenia[135] and, possibly, all Armenian history, up to the 20th century astrophysicist Viktor Ambartsumian.

"[139] Hacikyan et al. wrote in The Heritage of Armenian Literature: "Shirakatsi was an educator and an organizer of ideas and materials rather than an original thinker.

"[41] Suren Yeremian named Anania, along with historian Movses Khorenatsi and philosopher David the Invincible, one of the prominent thinkers of the "great cultural flourishing" in Armenia of the fifth to seventh centuries, when Hellenistic traditions were still strong and continued to bear the influence of the secular thinking of the pre-Christian times.

[140] Sen Arevshatyan argued that the "Christian spirit" is more prominent in Anania than in earlier figures of the Hellenizing School as he aims to bridge Hellenistic science and church doctrine.