A pagan spirit in the land of Noah

[Azat]

By John Westbrooke

Published: August 16 2002 18:35 | Last Updated: August 16 2002 18:35

 

 

Outside, the Armenian spring has slipped back into cold, dull winter. Inside Ejmiatsin cathedral, though, everything is warm and bright.

 

Priests robed in scarlet and gold chant the liturgy; the choir of women in white headscarves and men in uniform add their voices, joined by murmuring from the congregation and the tolling of bells, all resonating from ancient stone walls; gold-painted patterns on the domes and arches glitter in the light of candles; incense swirls in the shafts of light from high windows.

 

It seems lush and mysterious, especially to a non-Armenian speaker. Religious students in long grey coats gather together; celibates in peaked black hoods stand at the front; priests move in and out of sight behind an icon, and occasionally a curtain is drawn across to hide them and the altar completely, reinforcing the theatricality of the service.

 

This has been going on for a long time. Ejmiatsin is very old indeed, perhaps the oldest Christian church in the world. Armenia converted to the new religion in 301, well before Rome - well before anyone - and Ejmiatsin is its mother church, its Holy See.

 

The details are lost in legend. One says that a Christian virgin named Hripsime fled here to avoid the amorous attentions of Diocletian, the Roman emperor, only to attract those of pagan King Trdates. When she refused him too, he had her killed, and God turned him into a wild boar as punishment. He was restored by St Gregory, also a Christian, and in gratitude converted his country.

 

Gregory, now given the title The Illuminator, was told by Christ in a dream where to build a cathedral, on the site of a pagan altar. Its cruciform shape, under a dome, formed the template for later Orthodox basilicas. Ejmiatsin has been much altered over the centuries, but it still has some of Gregory's original stonework.

 

You can see its descendants all over Armenia and into Georgia and Turkey, though they can be hard to get to. Monasteries in particular are perched on remote hills and escarpments; they look from a distance like little boxes, as high as they are long, topped with a circular drum and conical roof.

 

Several of them are within reach of Yerevan, the capital, including one near Ejmiatsin where St Hripsime now lies. This is handy for weekend breaks, as you can put together a selection of day-trips from the city. You have to come back to Yerevan each night, because there is nowhere much else to stay, but it does not have enough charm itself to keep you more than a day or two.

 

It is a Soviet city of broad avenues, not winding oriental alleyways. Republic Square, at its heart, was built for military parades, and is flanked by some elegantly curving buildings in pink tufa stone, but much of the city is built of drab grey basalt and enlivened only by petrol stations with bright lights and colourful plastic.

 

There is a busy weekend market on an open park called Vernissage, where you can buy anything from microscopes to videos, and a cavernous indoor food market where stallholders invited us to try fresh strawberries and delicious pastes of fruit and nut.

 

We went to surrounding hilltops for some panoramas: try the ugly tower commemorating 50 years of communism, or the memorial to the victims of the 1915 genocide in which Turks killed 1.5m Armenians. Joining the crowd there on Remembrance Day, April 24, we shuffled forward for two hours to lay flowers by an eternal flame.

 

From both of these points you can see out over the plains to snowy mountains, Ararat and Aragats Larr. Ararat was said to be the landing place of Noah, from whom all Armenians trace their descent, and is the country's national symbol. To their continuing dismay, it was given to Turkey last century.

 

We drove out into the countryside to see the sights more closely - not fast, because Armenia's roads are poor. The government has little money for such projects. Fortunately, numerous foundations set up by wealthy Armenians abroad have funded infrastructural repairs, including a big programme of church refurbishment to mark 1,700 years of Christianity.

 

Dense fog left Haghartsin monastery almost invisible high in the hills: the chapels were dim and bare inside, and we could see nothing of what is said to be a spectacular setting. We were luckier with Noravank, tucked away in a deep gorge, and Khor Virap, a 12th century part-monastery, part-castle south of Yerevan.

 

On this hilltop Noah gave thanks for his deliverance and Gregory the Illuminator was held in a snake pit for 13 years before he cured the king. You can climb into the pit (was Gregory really there - who knows?), or take in the view from the walls, looking out over a village where storks nest on chimneys, to fields awash with cherry blossom.

 

Eastwards is Geghard monastery, constructed to house the lance-head said to have pierced Christ's side (it is now in the treasury at Ejmiatsin, along with ecclesiastical vestments, silver ornaments, a couple of footballs and the keys to Los Angeles). This is an exceptional piece of work, built back into a cliff face from the 7th century, and far more elaborately than, say, Petra in Jordan. Domes, pillars and wall decorations have all been hacked out of living rock.

 

It is notable for its khachkars, stone slabs with intricate crosses carved on them; some are free-standing, others incorporated into exterior walls. They testify to the depth of religious sentiment in Armenia, a country racially and doctrinally homogeneous for centuries.

 

Then again. . . at the gate, men keep pigeons in cages. Passers-by are invited to buy them and set them free, as an act of Christian charity, but also as what seems a rather pagan sort of good-luck offering (they're homing pigeons, so the vendors get lucky too).

 

As we looked at them, a woman walked by, carrying a headless chicken by its legs. She had had it slaughtered outside the church and blessed by a priest, to add weight to her prayers. There was no "rather pagan" about this; plain old animal sacrifice, and it goes on all the time. Even after 1,700 years, there are places Gregory hasn't quite managed to illuminate.

 

 

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