The main center of the order is located in San Lazzaro degli Armeni, Venice, from which the Vienna branch broke off in 1773.

[8] The Mekhitarist Congregation of Vienna[a] originated in 1773 when a group of monks left the island of San Lazzaro (Saint Lazarus), in Venice, and settled in Trieste, which was then under Austrian (Habsburg) rule.

Empress Maria Theresa welcomed them in her domains and on May 30, 1775, granted them permission to establish a monastery and church and operate a printing house.

[4] After Napoleon's invasion and occupation of Trieste, the Mekhitarists moved to the imperial capital of Vienna in 1805 since they were Habsburg subjects.

[1] An 1839 wall painting depicting the feeding the multitude by the German Romantic painter Ludwig Ferdinand Schnorr von Carolsfeld is located in the refectory, which was built according to the design of Kornhäusel.

[21] The altar contains a painting by Sitte titled St Mary’s protection of Armenia by father and son Schnorr von Carolsfeld.

[1] The side altar, dedicated to Gregory the Illuminator, was designed by Theophil Hansen, a Danish-born neoclassical architect known for the Austrian Parliament Building.

[22] The monastery preserves a significant number of ancient and medieval manuscripts, coins, folk costumes, rugs, books, periodicals, and other items.

[26] Gia Aivazian, a literature scholar, noted in 1981 that the Vienna Mekhitarists hold the best collection of retrospective issues of Western Armenian periodicals.

[26] The Vienna branch of the Mekhitarists became particularly noted in the fields of philology and language influenced by the German penchant for rational thinking.

[30] The publications of the Mekhitarists, both in San Lazzaro and Vienna, contributed greatly to the refinement of literary Western Armenian.