Monasteries and Temples

I made a few day trips out from Yerevan as well. The first one was back when Zack was still here, to the Etchmiadzin Cathedral: the oldest cathedral in the world, built in the early 300s. It still stands today, though of course renovated and restored. We visited on a Sunday during Mass, so I got to see the cathedral in full force. Like the other Armenian churches I’ve seen, Etchmiadzin is made of stone, though unlike the others, it’s ornately decorated on the inside. The church was recently redone, and all the artwork and patterns on the building were amazing. The domes were angular, steep, and grand, and the building looked so polished and clean.

The place was packed, and though it is the mass at the most important cathedral in Armenian Orthodoxy, not to mention the oldest cathedral in the world, it was quite loud. And I don’t even mean it was loud from the tourists—it was loud from the worshippers. It seemed like people were just okay talking at any level of voice at any time, completely irrespective of what was going on in the mass.

The mass itself was very musical, with a choir singing most prayers and the priest interjecting to do the “holy work” in song as well. Throughout the songs, other holy figures stood with these metal noise makers, swinging them back and forth. I found it really cool and interesting, and it felt meditative in almost a Buddhist sense.

Like in Georgia, you stand for the entire duration of the mass, again, as a testament to the fact that because Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice for your sins, you can sacrifice a bit of comfort for that memory. After two hours, I was starting to get tired of standing, but it wasn’t anything all that crazy. Another interesting thing that happened is that at some point during the mass, the priest goes up to a member of the congregation and puts his arms around the shoulders of a worshipper, moving his head back and forth across their head three times, declaring that Christ is in them. That person then shares it with other congregants, and before you know it, everybody is giving the Christ to the body of everyone else. It was a clear communal tradition that was thrust upon me, but hilariously, nobody gave Christ to Zack, who’s actually Christian. So, I did my part and delivered Christ to him as well.

We ended up exploring another church—Saint Gayane—and ended up crashing a Western-style wedding as well. We also visited the Relics Museum, which was significantly smaller, but way less packed than I’m sure the one in the Vatican is. We got to see a piece of wood that was part of the cross Jesus was crucified on, as well as a few old Bibles and holy pieces of clothing that are still worn on special occasions.

My second day trip from Yerevan was to Garni, where an old pagan temple to the pre-Christian sun goddess stands. It is rebuilt today, though with 70% original stone. It was destroyed about 400 years ago in an earthquake, and was rebuilt in the 1970s during the Soviet Period, which is surprising given the fact that they destroyed so much history and religion in the rest of their realm. The temple looked shockingly like the Parthenon or any other Greek temple, and Lusine was explaining to me that there are many similarities between the Armenian and Greek mythologies and traditions. I suppose I’ll have to do more research about whether these are cousin traditions or borrowed traditions. We also visited this very cool church that was carved out of the side of a mountain, as well as some basalt pillars.

My final day trip out of Yerevan was to Khor Virap, a monastery on the Turkish border, overlooking Mount Ararat. The mountain, though in modern-day Turkey, serves amazing significance to the Armenian people. The mountain was given to the Turks as part of an appeasement deal between the USSR and Turkey, betraying the weakened Armenians directly after the Genocide.

Nowadays, Khor Virap stands as a melancholy symbol of National Pride. Something reachable, something Armenian that still exists to admire what has been lost. The monastery is too far from the mountain for the views to be extremely clear, and even on the clear day I visited, the outline of the mountain was still hazy.

On my way back to Yerevan, I stopped at a roadside fruit stand to buy some fruit for my apartment. I ended up staying for an hour and a half, talking with the seller about her family, how she dreams of visiting America, how life in Armenia as a fruit vendor is difficult, and about how beautiful the countryside is. She even ran home to bring me some home-made bread stuffed with Armenian cheese and herbs as a lunch.

So that’s my week in Yerevan. I was aiming to recharge, while digging deep into the Armenian national identity, history, and of course, music, and I feel I was successful in that. If this was at the start of the trip, I’d have liked to get much farther out into the country, down south especially, but I am happy with the exploration I was able to eke out of my drained battery regardless. It’s been really nice to unpack, relax, and do laundry often enough that I don’t need to wear the same clothes every day. I’m now energized to make the most out of my time in Gyumri and Georgia before going out to Rome to see the family! The summer’s almost to an end; I cannot believe it.