Aruch Cathedral in Armenia: The ruined dome and the birds

Armenia lives and flows in my veins. My connection to my country is a bond that cannot be broken even if I spend years and decades outside of it. I don’t know how attached other nations are to their country and land, but we Armenians are and we pride ourselves on that.

While I knew much about the history of Armenia, I did not know that much about its places of interest and it all began a few years ago, when I started studying each single “place-to-see” in Armenia. Back then it was just a study which then transformed into a website presenting full information about Armenia, whereas today I stick to the lists I had made back then and organize weekend travels there.

What is the first thing that makes you pick a certain site for your venue? The appearance, including its architecture and location. The second thing of utmost importance is the history behind it. This is the criteria we usually pick the places on but this time we had a random pick mainly accounted by its close location as we started the “tour” late in the afternoon.

Photo by Ani Babayan

Aruch Cathedral — Not having seen too many pictures of this cathedral I was not that willing to go to this church when there were so many other sites on the list. But this cathedral simply marveled me. The church with the green around it is still soaring in my mind. But what made it this impressive?

Every information regarding this cathedral is available on TraveltoArmenia.am website (my baby website as I tend to call it) and so I won’t focus on it. I will rather recount my impressions.

First of all, the entire road seems to be an orchestra where the musicians are represented by the trees, flowers, the wind playing with your hair and Biblical Mount Ararat of Armenians which although in the territory of Turkey still guides the life and routine of Armenians and plays the same role as the conductor for his orchestra. With these mysterious feelings you will eventually arrive at Aruch Cathedral the location of which is both great and mysterious and boring.

On one side of the cathedral, there lies the village road with unattractive houses, but on the other side of the cathedral there is the green of the nature which seems to shine under the golden rays of the sun. The cathedral appeared non-functioning for me — there was no priest there and no pews. In some part of the church there were candles, but there was not anybody selling them — you just take as many candles as you need and put the money you want or can into a box placed under them.

Photo by Ani Babayan

The exterior of the cathedral more resembles a school building. But everything changes as you enter. You are being wowed at how beautiful it is from the inside, and to tell the truth, this is the case when the ruined and “hopeless” state of this cathedral only adds to its splendor. The floor of the cathedral was so damaged that in certain places there was grass growing. The cathedral is said to have featured a number of frescoes, but the traces of these frescoes have not been preserved, there is only one vague fresco standing as a pledge of it.

This cathedral is deemed to be the largest domed church in Armenia and therefore we were highly interested to see what it looked like and we were astonished — there was no dome at all. You look up and there is the blue of the sky or the dark of the clouds (depends on the day) and what completes this overall grandeur and makes this cathedral truly magnificent is the trill of the birds the dome of the church is mobbed by. They fly in the cathedral and their sweet and delightful chirping appears like a mind relaxing psalm, which you can hear for hours without getting bored.