SOURP ZORAVOR CHURCH

The church of Sour Zoravor is one of the few ancient churches in Yerevan. Like most of the religious buildings in the capital, it was built after the great earthquake of 1679, which destroyed a large part of the city, already modest and very damaged by the incessant wars fought by the Persians and Ottomans for its control. It was built in 1693 on the order of a local Armenian merchant, Xoja Panos, like so many other Armenian places of worship at the time - and even today, the oligarchs used to build churches to atone for their faults or to make themselves seen by the population! -, on the site of the Ananias' chapel. The present building is designed on the model of a basilica with three naves or bays, whose dome is supported by a single pair of pillars around which is articulated the rather austere interior space decorated with a few icons. It was once part of a larger monastic complex that prided itself on possessing a manuscript to which miraculous powers were attributed, which earned it the name of "the mighty one" (zoravor) and the ever-vigorous devotion of the faithful, who went there in great numbers to attend weddings, baptisms and funerals. The sober yet elegant orange tuff façade is preceded by a three-arched gallery topped by a pyramidal openwork rotunda. In 1889, a chapel was erected above the mausoleum of St. Anania, but the monastery's conventual buildings have disappeared.