Armenia's most amazing churches and monasteries: Turkish paperSeptember 16, 2017 - 14:33 AMT PanARMENIAN.Net - Turkey's Daily Sabah has published an article about the Armenian religious architecture after one of their travel reporters, Ernest Whitman Piper, and a team of wanderers set out for a journey to track down Armenia's most amazing churches and monasteries. "Armenia was one of the first ever Christian countries, as the locals never hesitate to tell you. They were so excited about being the first Christians that scads of them ran up into the hills to build astonishingly beautiful and compellingly strange monasteries. They put stone cones on their tops, they decorated their graves with intricate braided carvings. We had selected a handful of the most architecturally unusual places of worship for our tour," Piper says, adding that Khor Virap and Noravank were the first monasteries they visited in Armenia.
According to the article, Noravank has the greatest collection of khachkars anywhere on earth. "Noravank is a tiny monastery on a tiny square block with insane carvings everywhere, positioned next to and on top of bright red rock cliffs.," it says Next on their list were Geghard and Garni, a pair of temples close to each other. "Geghard monastery felt alien. The wooden doors were covered by carvings in medieval Armenian, an alphabet which is basically a magic spell, Piper says. Garni is a Greek-style pagan temple whose construction was ordered by a first century Armenian king to make the kingdom more Hellenic. "It was destroyed by an earthquake in the 17th century, and the USSR, to their credit, rebuilt it. After Armenia's conversion to Christianity, most of the pagan temples were destroyed, but Garni endured," the article says. Top stories David Vardanyan is the son of former Karabakh leader Ruben Vardanyan who who is currently imprisoned in Azerbaijan. The number of state universities will be reduced from 23 to 8 by 2030, Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sport Zhanna Andreasyan has said. From September 21 to November 11, a total of 2,820 Russians registered at a place of residence in Armenia, the police has said. The situation on the contact line between Karabakh and Azerbaijan was relatively stable overnight, the Defense Army says. Partner news | Ucom General Director gives lecture at French University in Armenia The General Director of Ucom Ralph Yirikian delivered a lecture at the French University of Armenia. Kazakhstan welcomes Yerevan, Baku’s agreement to meet in Almaty Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has welcomed the agreement of Baku and Yerevan to hold negotiations in Almaty. Armenia offers to temporarily host, preserve Gaza manuscripts The Armenian Foreign Minister has said Yerevan is ready to help preserve manuscripts from the conflict zone in Gaza. Aliyev says no need for mediators in Armenia-Azerbaijan process Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev believes that Baku and Yerevan do not mediators in the process of normalizing relations. |