Etchmiadzin Cathedral

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View from the main entrance to the east of the cathedral

The Cathedral of Etschmiadzin ( Armenian Մայր Տաճար Սուրբ Էջմիածին Majr Tatschar Surb Edschmiazin , German 'Mother of God Church of St. Etschmiadzin ' ) is an Armenian Apostolic Church in the Armenian province of Armavir . It is part of a monastery complex and cathedral of the Patriarch of the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Catholicos of the Holy See of St. Etchmiadzin and All Armenians . A church building built on the foundations of a pagan temple at the behest of the first Catholicos Gregory the Illuminator from 301 is said to have been inaugurated in August 303. In the 480s there was a new building with a wooden roof, in the place of which a forerunner of today's central building was erected at the beginning of the 7th century . The church, which was completely restored in the 17th century, has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2000 . Inside the cathedral there is a museum that exhibits relics and treasures.

The Cathedral of Etchmiadzin , the about 20 kilometers west of Yerevan is located, is considered the oldest Christian place of Armenians worshiped and represents the religious center of the country. It is supported by a state built the first Christian church viewed and was the oldest days of the Soviet Union Church on their territory. The cathedral is one of the most important architectural monuments of Armenia.

history

According to the legend handed down by the Armenian historian Agathangelos in 491, Jesus showed Gregory the Illuminator in a vision the place where he was to found the cathedral. Jesus struck a place with a golden hammer where a circular foundation made of gold, a long pillar of fire with a capital made of clouds and a cross of light appeared. The church is therefore also referred to as “illustrated by light”. In the same vision, the places of the martyrdom of Hripsime , the Gajane and their 35 virgins are said to have appeared to Gregory the Illuminator . The Armenian King Trdat III, who converted to Christianity after his healing by Gregory . released him after 13 years from captivity in the cave dungeon in Chor Virap , to which he had sentenced Gregor in 288. Soon after, built Gregor from the year 301, at the place he had seen in his vision on the altar of a fire temple in Vagharshapat a basilica with vaults , whose construction was completed in August 303rd The consecration of the building took place on the Saturday before the Assumption of Mary, which is why it was named after her St. Mary. Soon, however, the cathedral and city were not referred to by their actual name, but referred to in reference to the vision of Gregory Echmiadzin, which can be translated as “the native descended ”. Etchmiadzin became the Armenians' Catholic at that time and is considered the first Christian church established by a state.

Look into the dome

When the Persian Great King Shapur II invaded Armenia in 360, the cathedral was seriously damaged while trying to convert it into a Zoroastrian temple. After his retreat, the Catholicos Nerses I ordered its rebuilding. After the development of the Armenian alphabet by Mesrop Mashtots , the first school where it was taught was founded on the monastery grounds at the beginning of the 5th century. On the orders of the Sassanid governor of the province of Armenia , Vahan Mamikonian , the basilica, seriously damaged by violent uprisings, was replaced in 484 with a church with a cruciform basic scheme and a dome . In the same year, the Catholicos of the Holy See of St. Etchmiadzin and All Armenians moved his seat to Dvin , which was the political center of Armenia at the time, while Echmiadzin continued to be his spiritual heart.

According to the Armenian bishop and historian Sebeos , the cathedral was renovated in 618 by the Catholicos Komitas. The wooden dome was exchanged for an identical stone dome that still exists today and rests on four massive pillars that are connected to the outer walls by arcades .

The two northern pillars have existed since the 4th to 5th centuries. Although the seat of the Catholicos of the Holy See and All Armenians was relocated from Kozan back to Etchmiadzin, where it is still today, according to the resolution of an ecclesiological meeting of the Armenian Apostolic Church in 1441 , the next renovation of the cathedral took place much later. From 1627, urgent renovation work was necessary, especially the dome, whose conical outer shell was missing, and the roof. In addition, some stones had fallen from the walls, the bases of which were badly damaged and had holes. Under the Catholicos Moses III, who officiated from 1629 to 1632, the repair of the dome began, to which a drum was added. He also had a wall with eight towers built around the monastery complex, new living rooms and a guest house in the east, monastery cells in the north and south, a refectory , a bakery and a granary in the south. The majority of these extensions were destroyed in the Ottoman-Safavid War in 1635 and 1636 without the cathedral itself being damaged. The renovation work was completed under his successor Phillip.

View of the cathedral, western (left) and southern (right) bell towers

In 1654 he had a three-story bell tower built in front of the west portal, which was decorated and embellished by his successor Jacob IV in 1664. Under Eliasar, bell towers were added to the north, south and east wings of the cathedral in 1682. The bell towers rest on four pillars and have a rotunda made up of eight columns. They tower above the apses , i.e. the semi-circular extensions to the main room, which gives the cathedral a five-headed impression. The bell towers, unlike the sober exterior facade, are decorated with delicate stone reliefs.

The Catholicos Georgios IV repaired the east wall and added a museum with three chapels. Another renovation is said to have taken place under the Catholicos Narses V, who served from 1843 to 1857. The Catholicos Mkrtitsch Chrimjan had large parts of the interior furnishings transferred to museums. In the second half of the 19th century a sacristy was built, which is now the museum. In 1921 the bell tower of the southern apse collapsed and was replaced by a conical structure.

With the beginning of the Armenian Soviet Republic in 1920, the situation for the Church became more difficult. The service was banned, the land of the Etchmiadzin monastery was divided up for collective management, the seminary was converted into a public school, and the museum and library were declared state scientific institutes. The later Catholicos Georgios VI. During negotiations in Moscow in 1945, the situation was largely normalized, among other things a Catholicos was again allowed to be elected, the seminaries were allowed to start their activities and the dioceses were reorganized. He then had the cathedral extensively renovated, appealed to all Armenians, including those living abroad, to help and was nicknamed "Patriotic Catholicos" because of his services. In the years after 1945, Calouste Gulbenkian , a British engineer and businessman in the oil industry of Armenian descent, and, during the Catholicism of Wasgen I , Alex Manoogian, an Armenian-American industrialist, and his children stood out as donors .

During excavations and renovations between 1955 and 1956, an Urartian stele , fragments of an ancient mosaic , wall paintings and the remains of a pyre from a pre-Christian fire temple were found under the altar of the Ostaspsis. As a result of this and other finds during this period, indications of the form and structure of the church in the fourth century were obtained.

The largest collection of Armenian manuscripts was kept in the cathedral for a long time before it was transferred to the central archive for Armenian manuscripts, the Matenadaran in Yerevan.

On November 30, 2000, the cathedral was recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site along with the churches of St. Hripsime , St. Gajane and Shoghakat, also located in Etchmiadzin, and the ruins of the Zvartnots Cathedral .

architecture

The structure of the original church can largely be reconstructed on the basis of archaeological discoveries from the 1950s. It was a single-nave basilica with a vault and two narrow aisles. Six T-shaped columns divided the church into twelve bays . The east apse was horseshoe-shaped on the inside and pentagonal on the outside . There are also other views among art historians, which for example assume four columns, adopt a vaulted hall as the original building shape or see the original core structure in the current floor plan.

Floor plan of the cathedral before the renovations (late 19th century)

What is certain is that the shape of the cathedral, a square tetrakonchos , has not changed fundamentally since the fifth century, despite a lot of construction work. It has a cruciform floor plan with a central dome, four free-standing pillars and four projecting apses, which are semicircular on the inside and polygonal on the outside . Etchmiadzin is the oldest church of this style, which spread through Byzantium to Europe. Trapezoidal on the outside, the apses have two side rooms on the inside. The central pillars, standing cross-shaped to each other, divide the interior into nine equally large right-angled sections. Except for the dome, the plan of the church goes back to the 480 renovations carried out and is very similar to that of the 7th century Bagaran Church.

The cathedral has three entrances. The main portal is under the western bell tower, the other entrances are in the south and north-west corner of the cathedral. Originally there was another portal in the east through which Trdat III. is said to have entered the cathedral with his family, and that can only be guessed at from a corresponding vault today.

Two reliefs in the outer north wall date from the 5th century and still have Greek inscriptions. This part is the oldest still existing of the outer wall, which is adorned with many old floral and geometric motifs. One of these reliefs depicts Peter and St. Thecla . The second relief shows a medallion with a cross flanked by two doves. Numerous inscriptions surround the medallion and include the names of the donors. This motif is already known in an Armenian mausoleum from 364.

altar
Entrance portal with tympanum

Frescoes were added in the 17th and 18th centuries by the Hovnatanjan family of painters. They depict saints and scenes from the Old Testament. The frescoes were removed in 1891 but restored in 1956. The cathedral is one of the few painted churches in Armenia. The cathedral's wooden doors were made in Tbilisi in 1888.

Holy lance

The church treasures are in the museum in the sacristy. Among other things, chalices, liturgical vestments, valuable crucifixes and relics can be seen, including a plank that is said to come from Noah's Ark and a sacred spearhead from the Geghard monastery .

To the north of the church there are several medieval khachkars . A better known of these cross stones dates from the 17th century and contains many figurative representations. The lower one shows the Madonna and Child, the upper one shows a typical Deësis , that is, Jesus sitting in judgment on Judgment Day. A Chatschkar from Culfa captivates with the figurative representation of Jesus surrounded by angels in the upper field. Famous is the All Redeemer ("Amenaprkitch") made in the region around the Ararat in 1279 - cross stone with the Savior, Mary and the dragon slayer Georg in the middle. What is particularly remarkable about this cross stone is the symbolic representation in the upper field, where a fantasy bird carries the sun and a bull carries the moon on its back.

The architecture bears witness to the unique church style of Armenia, which is characterized by a central dome and cross-shaped floor plan and which developed a great influence in the region. Art historians like Josef Strzygowski in Western Europe see the architectural style of the cathedrals in Etschmiadzin and Bagaran cited in the church of the French Germigny-des-Prés abbey .

Monastery complex

Trdat III gate with the palace of the patriarch behind it

The entire monastery complex is owned by the Armenian Apostolic Church. Immediately to the west of the cathedral, framed by a small park, is the Trdat III gate, renovated in 1964, which leads to the palace of the patriarch and the administrative buildings, which are surrounded by a fortification wall. The pontifical residence was built between 1910 and 1915 and subsequently replaced the old one built between 1738 and 1741. It contains the Catholicos' offices, residence rooms and a treasure museum. After the First World War, the residence was used by the Soviets as a military headquarters until 1956 when it was returned to the Church thanks to the efforts of Catholicos Vazken I.

To the northeast, with buildings inside and outside the complex, is the Theological Seminary, which was built by Catholicos Georgios IV in 1874 and is named after him. The administration is located in the northeasternmost of these buildings. There is also a baptistery , completed in 2008 , a Catholicos museum in the old pontifical residence, a treasure house designed by the well-known Armenian architect Baghdasar Arsoumanian in 1982, monastery cells from the 19th and 21st centuries, and the refectory small monastery garden , the deanery building, a three-story guest house, a clock tower and a printing shop. Furthermore, in 1965 a kachkar was set up to commemorate the Armenian genocide . In addition to the main entrance to the site, which was built in 2001, there is an open-air altar built in the same year in a modern design.

  • Map of Echmiadzin

  • In the foreground: the 19th century additions around the east apse and bell tower

  • Detailed view of the drum and dome top

  • Detailed view of the bell tower with reliefs

  • All Redeemer Cross Stone

  • Open air altar

  • Theological seminar

literature

Web links

Commons : Etchmiadzin Cathedral  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Mother Cathedral of Holy Etchmiadzin. History. In: Website of the Catholicos of the Holy See of St. Etchmiadzin and All Armenians. Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin , accessed April 15, 2011 (Armenian, English).
  2. ↑ a b Elisabeth Bauer: Armenia: Past and Present . Reich Verlag, Lucerne 1977, ISBN 3-7243-0146-4 , p. 77 .
  3. ↑ Origins of Christianity. In: Website of the Catholicos of the Holy See of St. Etchmiadzin and All Armenians. Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin , accessed December 9, 2011 (Armenian, English).
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g Etchmiadzin. (No longer available online.) In: Armenian Studies Program. California State University, Fresno , archived from the original on June 23, 2014 ; accessed on April 12, 2011 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / armenianstudies.csufresno.edu
  5. ^ Elisabeth Bauer: Armenia: Past and Present . Reich Verlag, Lucerne 1977, p. 151 .
  6. ^ Elisabeth Bauer: Armenia: Past and Present . Reich Verlag, Lucerne 1977, p. 152 .
  7. ^ World Heritage Committee Inscribes 61 New Sites on World Heritage List. In: UNESCO World Heritage Center. November 30, 2000, accessed August 7, 2012 (English, French).
  8. ^ Elisabeth Bauer: Armenia: Past and Present . Reich Verlag, Lucerne 1977, p. 108 .

Coordinates: 40 ° 9 ′ 42.3 "  N , 44 ° 17 ′ 28.1"  E