Faith & stone
The mother church of the Armenian Apostolic Church, the ruins of a vast seventh-century rotunda, and a monastery on the lip of a canyon.
Duration
7 hours
Group
Small group, max 16
Difficulty
Easy
Languages
EN · RU · DE · FR · IT · ES
Worth knowingEchmiadzin and Zvartnots are inscribed together as one UNESCO World Heritage property (2000). Saghmosavank has no UNESCO status — it is simply beautiful.
Twenty kilometres west of Yerevan, in the town properly called Vagharshapat. Tradition puts the foundation at 301–303, when Gregory the Illuminator saw Christ descend and strike the ground with a golden hammer — hence the name, "the Descent of the Only-Begotten". It is widely regarded as the oldest cathedral in the world, though the fabric you see is largely the 5th-century rebuilding by Vahan Mamikonian. Under the main altar a glass panel looks down into the excavated fire altar of the pagan temple it replaced.
A church of 618 over the tomb of a Roman virgin martyred by King Trdat — the events that led to his conversion. Its plan, the inscribed tetraconch, became one of the most copied in Armenian and Georgian architecture. The interior is almost bare: cut tuff, and light from twelve narrow drum windows.
Begun in 643 and consecrated in 652, a three-tiered rotunda 45 metres high that stood for about three centuries before collapsing in the tenth century, most probably in an earthquake. One reconstructed arcade stands alone on the plain, its capitals carved with eagles — and on a clear day Ararat rises directly behind them, which is the sightline the builders chose.
North to the Kasagh gorge. The church of Surb Sion was built in 1215 by Prince Vache Vachutian; the book depository of the mid-1250s is one of the earliest purpose-built manuscript libraries in Armenian architecture. Step out of the gavit and the ground ends, 150 metres above the river.
Returning around 17:00.
In the price
Not included
Stops in the order we visit them. Distances are indicative, not a driving route.
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Want it privately?
Your own vehicle and guide, your own start time, and the freedom to linger where it is worth lingering.