Harout Semerdjian

Armenia: The First Christian Nation

In eternal memory of my grandfather, Martiros Semerdjian, and all victims of Genocide.

In 301 A.D., St. Gregory the Illuminator converted Armenian King Tiridates III to Christianity. Armenia thus became the first nation in the world to officially embrace the religion. With the adoption of Christianity came Armenia's Golden Age in learning, theology, art and architecture. As offerings to Christ, Armenians began to work marvels with stone. Churches and khatchkars, a distinctly Armenian form of stone-cross monuments, maintain a principal share in this number. Armenian churches are distinguished by their traditional features, including their pyramidal domes and circular drums. Their techniques and styles have influenced Western architecture. Some scholars argue, for example, that the Cathedral of Ani - the fabled city of "a thousand and one churches" - is the prototype of Gothic churches built in Europe centuries later.

These photos of historic Armenian monuments are from my recent trips to Armenia, Turkey and Iran. Of those that fall outside Armenia today, the ones in Iran have been carefully maintained with Iranian government support. In contrast, nearly all the 4,000 churches left behind in Turkey after the 1915 Armenian Genocide have fallen to destruction or natural disasters. It is my hope that the U.N. will initiate a program to preserve these collapsing world-class monuments in Turkey and Azerbaijan. While Armenians today inhabit only a fraction of their homeland, ruins of their churches in bordering countries are reminders of their 3,000-year history on those lands.