Etchmiadzin Cathedral 🇦🇲 Armenia

Mount Ararat is located in eastern Turkey on the borders of Iran and Armenia. The Armenians, one of the most ancient civilized people of Western Asia, belong to the Indo-European family. Their origin can be traced back as far as 3,000 years before Christ, and their presence in the Caucasus area is testified by the Greek and Assyrian historic and mythological sources. Their home country, the area where the identity of the Armenian people came into existence and later developed, is commonly referred to as the historic Armenia. Armenia was a buffer state between the powerful empires of Rome and Persia. To the left, the snowy peak of Mount Ararat crowns a chain of mountains with the lush vineyards in their foothills. The mountainous nature of Armenia results in a series of highly diverse landscapes with variations in geological substrate, terrain, climate, soils and water resources. These landscapes support a great variety of habitats. Igmeyatsen is a mere 20 km from Yerevan. Igmeyatsen, known as Vagashapat before 1945, was founded by the king Vagashok in the place of the ancient settlement of the 3rd century BC. On the territory of Vagashapat, there have survived monuments of various periods of Armenia's history. The first people to adopt Christianity as a state religion, Armenians recognized St. Gregory the Illuminator as their apostle. Armenia adopted a new alphabet in the early 5th century, revealed by God to the monk Mesrop Mastots. Armenian Christians remained under the powerful combined religious and political jurisdiction of the Byzantine Empire until the 6th century, when the Armenian Church asserted its independence by breaking with the Byzantine doctrine of Christ's dual nature. Christian art in Armenia flourished first at the frontiers of the Islamic and Byzantine Empires and then as a result of contracts with the Near Eastern Crusader Art before undergoing a revival while subjugated to Persian and Ottoman rule. The Igmeyatsen Cathedral is the cornerstone of faith for 9 million Armenians worldwide. It is supposedly the oldest monastic foundation in the Christian world and Armenians and Christians alike make a pilgrimage to Igmeyatsen every year. In addition, Igmeyatsen Cathedral and the nearby museum have some of the oldest Christian relics in the world, attracting historians and tourists. The Armenian culture is one of the world's oldest. It carries all the layers of human civilization. The beginning of the new period of the history of Armenia is considered to be in 301 CE, when Armenia declared Christianity as its state religion. According to the great 5th century Armenian historian Agafangel, St. Gregory the Illuminator, first patriarch of Armenia, had a vision. Christ came down from heaven and touched the earth with a golden hammer. In that place a church was built called Igmeyatsen, the place where the only begotten descended. In the garden complex there are khachkar. A khachkar is an outdoor vertically erected flat stele, which, when in situ, is positioned in relation to the four cardinal points of the world. The western side has an ornamentally carved cross, accompanied by vegetative geometric motifs, with animals, particularly birds, and sometimes with carvings of people. The khachkar both stimulated and reflects the unique development of Armenian culture. It is one of the most characteristic symbols of Armenian identity, with its marvellous carvings, saviour symbolism of the cross, and the notion of eternity, which is conveyed by the stele. The khachkar was one of the most respected and, due to its positioning under the open air, one of the most accessible saints. After more than a thousand years, the khachkar is also a contemporary cultural phenomenon. Today, hundreds of khachkars are still being created in Armenia. The religious building remains in Ekmiatsen bears witness to the implantation of Christianity in Armenia and to the evolution of a unique Armenian ecclesiastical architecture. This exerted a profound influence on architectural and artistic development in the region. Today, the structural complex of Ekmiatsen, known as Holy Ekmiatsen, includes around the courtyard the buildings of the Katholikoset, a school, winter and summer refectories, a hostel, and Tridats Gate, built in the 17th till the 19th centuries. The Cathedral of Holy Ekmiatsen is the most ancient Christian temple in Armenia. It was built in 301 till 303 by Saint Gregory the Illuminator, the founder of the Armenian Apostolic Church, the capital and religious center of Armenia at that time. Armenian architecture, a particularly rich part of the Armenian heritage, is widely recognized as a unique contribution to international architecture. The tradition of architectural engineering has ancient origins on the Armenian highlands. In Armenia, the church's plans were usually modified to conform to local conditions. A number of unique church forms were invented by Armenian architects in the pursuit of ever more efficiently built and aesthetically conceived houses of worship. The roofs were composite in their appearance because they had to cover the vaults and domes of a complex, though symmetric, group of inner spaces. Like the inner and outer walls and the drum, they too were made of tuffer thinly cut into uniform shingles. The Armenian preference or weakness for the dome manifested itself very early. By the end of the 6th century, a church without a dome was unthinkable. Other than a few early exceptions, the dome or cupola was elevated about the other vaulted ceilings by a cylindrical drum. All churches are built entirely in stone. The scarcity of wood prevented its architectural use in medieval Armenia. With rare exceptions, the stone used is a volcanic tuffer abundant in Armenia in many colors and shades. On the monastery yard, the gate of King Trdad leads to the Pontifical Residence. The only evidence remaining of a door in this location in ancient times is an existing upper arch. According to tradition, Trdad and the family of the king entered the cathedral from this door. In a country with an architectural tradition in stone dating back to Urartian times, the craftsmen, who so carefully carved blocks of stones for walls, fortresses and sanctuaries, had acquired the skill to sculpt stone as relief decorations for buildings or as independent works of art. The Christian Times relief sculptures on the facades of churches is very abundant. Almost all 6th and 7th century churches have carved decorative bands, but some have figural reliefs around the windows and in the tympana of doorways. The eclectic quality of the Armenian art make it both complex and diverse, encompassing ideas from the Orient and the Occident, from the Classical and Byzantine world and the vast realm of Islam. Yet, Armenian art managed to remain independent and was rarely imitative. The cathedral has three entrances. The main one is the entrance of the bell tower. The other two entrances are located in the cathedral's southwest and northwest corners. A historical fourth entrance was traditionally located near the eastern corner, where there is a wall at present. The consecration of the cathedral occurred on the Saturday preceding the Assumption of the Holy Mother of God and was named St. Mary Edward's Atzen. As a result, the commemoration day of the Mother Cathedral occurs on the Saturday preceding the Feast of the Assumption of the Holy Mother of God. In the Christian well, the Mother Cathedral of Holy Igmiatsen is the oldest example of a cruciform, tetra-altered and tetra-columned dome-centered church in the Christian architecture. This specific style and design was spread to Byzantium and throughout Europe. Although she has suffered destructions followed by renovations throughout the centuries, the current form of the Mother Cathedral corresponds with the original illuminated drawing of the illuminator's vision. Excavations during the 1950s confirmed that no later than from the 5th century, the Mother Cathedral had a rectangular cruciform plan with a dome wherein the west, south and north sides had salient apses, semi-circular on the inside and pentagonal from the outside. There are two distinctive features of Armenian church architecture. The first is the use of double intersecting arches to span the interior space, eliminating the need for the supporting columns familiar in other types of churches. The altar of descent is located in the center of the cathedral, directly underneath the main dome. The altar is located on the spot where Saint Gregory the Illuminator saw Christ descend to the ground and strike the earth with a golden hammer, revealing the vision of the Mother Cathedral of Holy Ignatian. The interior arches and domes are adorned with a weave of multicolored ornamentation, combined with a gold leaf. These floral and natural decorations continue to the base of the dome and interlacing with one another, reach up through the vault of the dome and finally intersect at the apex with a 12-sided star-shaped illustration. The main altar, as seen from the chancel, is ornately decorated with frescoes and ornamentation. Made of Italian Carrara marble, the beauty of the altar lies in the simplicity of its design. Traditionally, the Mother Cathedral had seven homely altars, five of which are used today for services. In the Mother Cathedral, divine liturgy is celebrated on the main altar and the other altars are used to celebrate the liturgy once a year on the commemoration day of the given saint. Similarly, divine liturgy is celebrated on the altar of the belfry of the Mother Cathedral every year on the Feast of the Holy Archangels. The religious building remains in Ignatien bear witness to the implantation of Christianity in Armenia and to the evolution of a unique Armenian ecclesiastical architecture. The Armenian central dome cross hall type which exerted a profound influence on architectural and artistic development in the region.