Travel Guide Etchmiadzine

The center of Armenian Christianity, Echmiadzin, 20 km west of Yerevan, is to Armenians what the Vatican is to Roman Catholics. But far away from the splendor of the Vatican, it is a small town of Soviet design, with a few buildings dating from the Tsarist era, built around the Holy See, with its cathedral (Mayr Dajar), the very first church in Armenia, and its pontifical buildings, set in a beautiful park, all against the backdrop of Mount Ararat. The city, which has undertaken restoration work to honour its pontifical vocation, which it has assumed since 1441, after the decline of the rival Catholicossate of Cilicia, has venerable churches dedicated to Christian martyrs, which are also well worth a visit. The city, which was once destined to be the capital, has also taken back its former name of Vagharchapat, which it owes to King Vagharchak, who fortified it in the 2nd century AD. Nearby, to the west, after visiting the Bronze Age site of Medzamor, the village of Aknalitch, near the small lake of the same name, immerses us in a completely different spiritual universe, that of the Yezidis who erected the largest temple in the world dedicated to their deities.