Christian Armenian Architecture and the Influence of the Pre-Christian Culture: A Common Reader’s Perspective

Besides reclaiming the infinite wealth of over two millennia of pre-Christian Armenian cultural heritage, and a mythology (Vahagn, Anahit, Astghik) that has been the inspiration of our poets (Daniel Varoujan, Vahe-Vahian, Levon Shant), Grigoryan’s innovative approach makes the Armenian spirit and identity that reach back into our prehistory part of Christian Armenian architecture.

Nature has always provided the sub-text for our religious structures and aesthetic creations, argues Grigoryan. The symbolic representations in our temples and churches originate in the natural forces of the physical world. Grigoryan cites the Holy Cross Church of Akhtamar, built in A.D. 915-921, as an example of “a symbolic totality” showing the implementation of the Heaven, Man, Earth model, that divides the world into four parts/sides along vertical and horizontal axes, and the principle of four, manifest in cultures worldwide. The four walls which comprise the structure, for example, symbolize the four elements, earth, water, air and fire. The main altar faces east towards the rising sun. The external walls are covered with motifs of plants and animals from the natural world, and so on.

Reverting to nature as the source makes the creation of symbols part of man’s aspiration to find his place in the universe. To illustrate, Grigoryan describes the gradual transitioning from establishing residences in natural caverns to using these as models for the construction of dwellings. The hillside village where the roof of one residence is the yard of another is one example. Other factors that create environments suitable for habitation include the presence of potable water, arable land and geographies that offer protection from hazards, etc. Grigoryan describes a village where residences were built all along the river that runs through it. This collaboration between art and nature has ensured the survival of mankind which, for Grigoryan, is the raison d’etre of architecture.

When the man-made and the natural cohere and when the pre-Christian and the Christian unite in harmony, divisions and the ensuing hatred and wars become irrelevant. Grigoryan’s strategy of connecting universally through symbols, which provide insight into the essence of things, reminds us of the commonality of all human endeavors and opens the doors to the possibility of forging connections that could alter the self-destructive path of genocides and wars. It is an ethos that strives to combine, versus one that creates a divide, helps preserve and advance history, not destroy it. This unifying vision is, to me, the book’s greatest appeal.

On a more self-serving note, promoting continuity and unity makes it more difficult for Armenia’s enemies to rewrite history. Evidence of a continuous Armenian presence could in fact be an antidote to the deliberate destruction by Azerbaijan of our religious and cultural artifacts in its efforts to annihilate a millennia-old culture from existence and erase all trace of the Armenian presence on our historic lands.

Grigoryan’s energy and his attention to his subject matter should invite into the conversation anyone interested in Armenian culture and architecture. There are numerous mentions in history books of the existence of symbols, but there is no coherent or sustained research of the application and the interpretation of symbolic thinking in Armenian architecture, writes Grigoryan. This landmark study fills that huge gap. Notwithstanding, Grigoryan describes his astonishing accomplishment as “only an experiment.” The advent of new technologies and new evidence coming to light continually make future editions of the book inevitable, he avers.