Echmiadzin - Zvartnots

Buffet breakfast at the hotel. Our driver, Varden and his friend Ena picked us up at the hotel. Ena was a charming 20 year old woman who just finished school, knows 3 languages fluently- Armenian, Russian and English, with a smattering of French and German. She just got her first job as a secretary in a real estate office, earning $60/month working from 8:00 am to 8:pm with an hour break during the day. And, her first months’ salary goes to the person who found her the job. But as she said, “What can I do?”

We headed to our “church tour”, stopping at the Church of St Ripsime. The legend of the St Ripsime is that she fled from the persecution of the Roman Emperor to Armenia. The Armenian Tsar, when hearing of her beauty, decided to take her as a wife. She declined to marry a pagan and was executed. The chapel was built at the site of her death.

From there, we went to the Echmiadzin Cathedral, the mother church of the Armenian Oriental Orthodox religion. The legend is that Christ descended from heaven and pointed to this site to be called “Ech” (“the only begotten son come down to earth”). With the death of the patriarch, the church was filled with priests in hooded black robes and choirs and an elaborate service going on. We lit candles as is customary (According to Father Davidian, a recent survey showed that 60% of Armenians believe in God, but 75% light candles).

Then on to Zvartnots, the ruins of a church from 641-661, a cross shaped church surrounded by a circular outer church and attached to the church is a royal palace and a winery, banquet hall and bath house.

(Photo courtesy of Flickr)

Driving with Varden was a challenge for John. Rather than reading a map, Varden preferred to go from point to point- using the points he knew…. and asking the locals for directions (who typically didn’t’ know where major sites in their own town were). We stopped for apricots on the side of the road and tasted some of the most wonderful fruit we’d ever had.

After a full day of driving, wind and heat, we had dinner at the hotel and another evening of instruction and insight from Father Davidian. Tonight was instruction on the church organization (part of the Oriental Orthodox religion rather than the Eastern Orthodox), and on church membership (the country went from 1000 churches to less than 13. Now it’s slightly over 100 churches.) But, he explained that the faith was stronger under Communism. His plan is to become the “Billy Graham” of Armenia…and it sounds like they could use it.