Scholarly work examining the implications of the demarcation of borders between Palestine and Lebanon has largely ignored their socio-religious and socio-political impacts upon Armenian religious pilgrims, officials, and their affiliated national religious institutions. These readings depict Armenian communities in different geographic locations as individual units, without taking into consideration their interconnected ties based on economic, religious, social, political, and historical connections. This paper will examine how the members of the Armenian Patriarchal Sees of Beirut and Jerusalem operated under and circumvented the installation of national borders. In so doing, this paper will investigate the connection of these borders to the development of Armenian national awareness in an effort to broaden the scope of what is considered national. In addition, it will consider whether this geographical engineering was successful and explore the relation between acquiescence to this border and prevailing historical circumstances. The Armenian Patriarchates of Jerusalem and Cilicia share historical and religious bonds- the former even serving as a temporary home for the later until a permanent home could be secured in Antelias, Lebanon after the Genocide of 1915. Religious pilgrims traveled from one holy site to the other, while both seminaries served to provide generations of ecclesiastical figures to each other’s headquarters and parishes. The bitterly contested election of the Armenian Patriarch of Cilicia in Antelias, in 1956, complicates this story. The atmosphere before and after the elections was marred by emotional demonstrations of thousands; calls for the resignation of church officials, physical attacks on the acting Patriarch, and worldwide press attention. Even the Patriarch of the See of Echmiadzin in Soviet Armenia was dispatched to invalidate the selection. When this spectacle did not freeze the process, “The Right Hand of St. Gregory” relic, associated with ecclesiastical authority and legitimacy, was discovered missing from within the walled compound in Antelias. Mysteriously “found” a year later within the confines of the Jerusalem Patriarchate, it was triumphantly brought back to Antelias. This paper will examine the development of the relationship between the two Sees in Beirut and Jerusalem and will explore how the implementation of borders affected their exchange in ideas, worshippers, and figureheads. By looking at the disappearance, resurface, and recovery of the relic, I will focus on the permeability of these imposed borders. Through this exploration, the manipulations and shapings of identity, legitimacy, and authority can further be isolated, contributing to larger questions of identity and national construction.