Echmiadsin 
Echmiadsin the world's oldest basilica. (303 AD and onwards)
Armenians are proud to belong to the first country to have officially adopted Christianity (12 yrs before the Roman empire). No doubt that their churches and monasteries rank among the oldest.
if a festive and cosy small town is, cultivates with houses from local
tuff and tufa and from the city the Artik. As everywhere in the
republic the industry develops also here, prevails an active cultural
life. The largest object of interest in Echmiadsin is the
cathedral. The excessive quantity says that Jesus exactly drove the
place for the building of churches here from the sky and displayed.
The cathedral Echmiadsin is the oldest Christian church. In its
current appearance (main part) it originated in in the 80's 5. Jh. in
place of a still much older church, those the excessive quantity after
start 4. Century, in the years, when Armenia assumed the
Christianity, to have thus been built is. The cathedral was
reconstructed several times, was left to their each larger
architectural period their tracks. Of the original building from that
5. Jh. remained received only four Basissen, on which four suspension
towers of new composition were specified. Hinzugebaut became one bell
tower, three rotundas and the vestry.
Wallpictures manufactured in 17. and 18. Jh. well-known painters
from the Family of the Ownatanjan on. From them come some paintings,
which are kept in Echmiadsin. The cathedral accommodates a museum
with a rich collection of Paramenten, handwriting, church devices and
gifts from the foreign country.
Echmiadsin is the center of the Armenian-Gregorian church. All Armenian parishes are subordinated to it in the Soviet Union and
abroad. Every seven years the solemn rite of the Myrrhenkochens is
carried out here, for which thousands of Glaeubige from all sections
of the world appear themselves.
Christianity is an important part of Armenians' identity, a symbol reflected in the 40,000 old churches registered
in Armenia (how many then in Anatolia !?). They also see it as the reason of the martyrdom
of many of their grand-parents, when the government of the Young Turks declared the Jihad in 1915 and
slaughtered a million Armenians in Anatolia (a region now claimed by Kurds...).
pictures
