Home
Armenia
Attractions & Activities
Yeghegis church and Jewish cemetery

Yeghegis church and Jewish cemetery

Church

Show on map

140 km from Yerevan center

Region:

Vayots Dzor

In the mountains of Vayots Dzor, among quiet valleys and stormy gorges, lies the ancient town of Yeghegis – a place where stones still breathe with the centuries. In the 13th-14th centuries it was the residence of the princely Orbelyan family, whose grandeur still echoes in its old churches and family cemetery. Here stand the Church of the Holy Mother of God, built in 1703 on the foundation of an older shrine, the 13th-century Church of Saint Karapet and the cross-domed Zorats Church, striking for its harmony of lines and spiritual power.

Yet Yeghegis also keeps another memory – that of the Jewish community that lived side by side with Armenians for more than half a century. On the basalt slabs of its ancient cemetery survive inscriptions in Hebrew and Aramaic, voices from the depths of centuries. Here one can read verses from the Bible, see names and symbols once dear to living people who shared this land.

Christian crosses and Jewish letters standing together in the same space make Yeghegis a rare monument to cultural coexistence. It seems that the wind rushing through the gorge carries with it the prayers and chants of both communities, forever etched into the history of Armenia. Yeghegis is not only ruins and tombstones but a living legend where faith, culture and destiny meet.