Vank Cathedral

🕰️When was it built?

The Armenians whom Shah Abbas I moved to Isfahan first built a small church here. Work on the present church began in 1655, under Shah Abbas II, and ended in 1664. The bell tower and the clock above the entrance were given to the church by Mardiros Hordananian in 1931.

🏛️What was it built for?

Vank was the cathedral and the seat of the archbishop of the Armenians of Isfahan, and it takes its name from the church of Surp Amenaprgich Vank in Jolfa of Nakhchivan; vank means monastery in Armenian. A printing house, a library and a museum were also built beside the church.

👀What you will see

• The walls, vaults and the inside of the dome are painted in oils and gilded; you see the life of Christ from his birth to his ascension, the Day of Judgement, and heaven and hell.
• The church has two domes: a small one over the place where the congregation sits and a larger one over the area in front of the altar.
• The three-storey bell tower above the entrance holds a clock weighing 300 kilograms with four round faces 104 centimetres across.
• The church museum keeps a single hair with a sentence from the Torah written on it with a diamond pen, which can be read through a microscope.
• The museum holds 710 manuscript books, royal decrees about the Armenians of Jolfa and their traditional clothes.

💡Something interesting

Unlike the old Armenian churches, which are mostly of stone, this church was built of mud brick and faced with fired brick outside. Its dome is not the conical Armenian kind either; it was built like the domes of Safavid mosques.