Khor Virap - Architecture

Architecture

Church

The Nerses chapel, built in the 5th century around the famous pit, was of white limestone. Though plain in appearance, a monastery was built around a large enclosure that surrounds the ruins of the old chapel. This church has a twelve sided tholobate and dome and is dedicated to S. Astvatsatsin. The altar pulpit is well decorated. Though most Armenian churches have an east-west orientation, placing the altar at the east end, St. Gevorg Chapel is oriented northwest-southeast.

Pit

The pit where Gregory was imprisoned is southwest of the main church, underneath St. Gevorg Chapel which is a small basilica replete with a semicircular apse. Of the two pits inside the chapel, Grigor's is the farther one, 6 metres (20 ft) deep and 4.4 metres (14 ft) wide. The pit is approached through two unmarked holes. A small chamber, winding stairway, and a ladder lead to a small enclosure in the pit. To the right of the altar in the dungeon is the main room. A long ladder from here descends to a large cell of fairly good size, which was Grigor Lusavorich's prison cell. The climb down the well is to a depth of 60 metres (200 ft). The pit is well lit but the climb down the metal ladder requires sturdy shoes. It is also extremely humid down the pit in the summer months so be cautious and don't bring candles down as this adds to the heat.

Read more about this topic:  Khor Virap

Famous quotes containing the word architecture:

    For it is not metres, but a metre-making argument, that makes a poem,—a thought so passionate and alive, that, like the spirit of a plant or an animal, it has an architecture of its own, and adorns nature with a new thing.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    The principle of the Gothic architecture is infinity made imaginable.
    Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)

    The two elements the traveler first captures in the big city are extrahuman architecture and furious rhythm. Geometry and anguish. At first glance, the rhythm may be confused with gaiety, but when you look more closely at the mechanism of social life and the painful slavery of both men and machines, you see that it is nothing but a kind of typical, empty anguish that makes even crime and gangs forgivable means of escape.
    Federico García Lorca (1898–1936)