Tours In Armenia Echmiatsin
Cathedral and Churches of Echmiatsin
Echmiatsin is the holy city of Armenia and the headquarters and official residence of the Catholicos of all Armenians, Supreme Patriarch of the Armenian Apostolic Church. It is in the Armavir province, 20 kilometers west of Yerevan.
Echmiatsin Cathedral
Echmiatsin Cathedral is the oldest in the world. The construction of the first Christian church began in 301 in the same year that Armenia adopted Christianity as its official religion and ended in 303. According to Armenian chronicles of the V century, Jesus himself descended from heaven in vision to Grigor Lusavorich (St. Gregory the Illuminator) and with a golden hammer marked the spot where the cathedral was to be constructed. St. Gregory the Illuminator, the first Catholicos laid the foundation stones of the temple. Therefore, the church was given the name of Echmiatsin, which means "the Only Begotten descended here”. Since 1945, the city also bears this name. It has a traditional Armenian design with a belfry and a number of rotundas. If you wander around the gardens you will see astonishing carvings and khatchkars. In the museum of the cathedral among relics you can see the Holy Lance with which the Roman soldier stabbed the body of Christ crucified and a slice of the Ark of Noah.
Saint Hripsime Church
Saint Hripsime Church is one of the major early churches in the city. Catholicos Komitas erected the church atop the original mausoleum built by Catholicos Sahak the Great in the year 395 AD; it contained the remains of the martyred Saint Hripsime to who the church was dedicated to.
According to the legend, Hripsime was to be forcefully married to the Roman emperor Diocletian. She was one of the 40 virgins who had fled the emperor and left for Armenia. The relics of St. Hripsime lie in a tomb below the church. Hripsime Holy Temple is known for its majestic simplicity, monumentality and unity of constructive and architectural forms. It is the embodiment of the creative search of an entire generation of architects Armenians and a classic example of central-domed church of Armenian architecture.
Saint Gayane Church
Saint Gayane church is situated in Echmiatsin in the place of an old chapel built in the 4th century over the grave of Abbess Gayane, the spiritual mother of the virgin, who escaped the Roman Empire with St. Hripsime. It is a domed basilica erected by the Catholicos Ezr from 631-640 AD. This Holy Temple is the finest Armenian architectural monuments of Middle Ages. St. Gayane is located only a few hundred feet from the Cathedral of Holy Echmiatsin, where seats the Catholicos of Armenia. A chapel was constructed under the East apse for the Saint's relics, and the bema was rebuilt. In 1688, an inscription by the Catholicos Eliazar state that he erected a gait on the west end.