Description of the attraction
Khor Virap monastery is located on a hill about 40 km from Yerevan and half a kilometer from the republican border, near the village of Pokr Vedi, Ararat region. In ancient times, one of the capitals of Armenia, the historical city of Artashat, erected by King Artashes I around 180 BC, was located on this place. According to legend, the Carthaginian general Hannibal played a huge role in the foundation of the city.
Instead of the presently existing monastery, a royal prison was once located here. Translated from the Armenian language "Virap" means "pit". Prisoners were thrown into this deep pit filled with poisonous insects and snakes. Based on the chronicles of the famous historian Agatangegos, it was here that the founder of the adoption of Christianity in Armenia, Grigor Lusavorich, was tortured. Grigor was thrown into prison by order of Tsar Trdat III. Lusavorich spent 13 years in the dungeon.
In 642, Catholicos Nerses erected a chapel over the prison dungeon, which in its shape resembled the temple of Zvartnots destroyed after the earthquake. After a while, the chapel was destroyed. In 1662, the church of the Holy Mother of God with a belfry adjacent to the western side was erected in its place.
The monastery-fortress of Khor Virap previously housed the theological seminary and the residence of the Armenian Catholicos. Vardan Areveltsi, a historian of the 13th century, founded a school here. In the XVIII century. the temple fell into disrepair and only in 1765 the Catholicos Simeon Yerevantsi reconstructed it.
Currently, the monastery ensemble consists of two churches: St. Gevorg, built by Catholicos Nerses III in 642, and the main church of the Holy Mother of God (Surb Astvatsatsin), erected at the end of the second half of the 17th century. The Church of the Holy Mother of God is a domed building with an adjacent bell tower.
An amazing view of the famous Mount Ararat opens from the territory of the Khor Virap monastery.
