Geghard Monastery

Departing Lake Sevan our next scheduled stop was 60 kilometres more or less due-south, at the UNESCO listed Geghard Monastery.  The countryside was now less mountainous and the roads were correspondingly better.

On the way we would stop to get our first glimpse of Mount Ararat, the mountain on which Noah's Ark is said to have come to rest as the Flood subsided.

Another aspect of the modern highway was that it had in places been cut through mounds of volcanic scree (talus). This was like a plumb pudding, with loose rocks and pumice and lumps of obsidian - black volcanic glass, like plums. Our tour leader asked the driver to stop and the entire group went fossicking and chipping and breaking to produce razor sharp edges - potential stone-age tools.    

Obsidian fossicking - something different - stone-age tools

As advertised in our itinerary, we also stopped at a lookout: across the plain to the volcanoes on the horizon in Turkey: Ararat and little Ararat. Disappointingly they were shrouded in clouds; that soon cleared after we were on our way again.  Never mind, we would have plenty more opportunities to see them again.

Ararat and little Ararat - initially shrouded in clouds
yet we would have plenty of opportunities to see them again (below)

Geghard means spear and the Geghard Monastery is where the spear used to open Christ's side, to confirm his death, was said to lie.  It was said to have been brought here by Jude the Apostle (Judas Thaddaeus) who died in 70 CE and a small cave-chapel was founded here around the fourth century.  The cave contains a sacred spring that is the probable reason for the site's association with the spear (the holy lance) because holy water mixed with Christ's blood came forth. 

The story of the holy lance only appears in John's Gospel, written well after the event (composed between 90 and 100 CE). Like much of John's Gospel this reimagining of the events does not appear in the earlier Synoptic Gospels (Mathew; Mark and Luke) so theologians attribute to it a metaphorical meaning.  Rejecting several earlier works about Jesus, the Synoptic Gospels, together with John's Gospel and the writings of St Paul, were collected under the Roman Emperor Constantine I to provide the metaphysical core to Christianity that distinguishes it from Judaism. 

Geghard Monastery - complete with a serendipitous angel - and the ancient holy spring

As it turned out I had plenty of time to contemplate such issues here because our bus wanted to stay a bit longer and so refused to start.  Then we had some more excitement when one of our party was taken away in an ambulance that announced on its side that it was provided by Chinese aid.  Suddenly China's President Xi Jinping's  'One Belt, One Road' (OBOR) initiative, also known as the 'New Silk Road', was manifest, outside the Geghard Monastery in Romania.

As many travellers have observed there are many many contradictory religions; almost all based on the, now well researched, human illusion that our mind operates independently of our body.

In our travels I constantly marvel that there is such a diversity of religious faiths.  Each has elaborate cultural practices and modes of expression designed to reassure their adherents that their particular route to eternal wellbeing for their disembodied 'spirit' is the correct one. In some this is a, somehow desirable, eternity (lasting billions of years?) in others it's another path, like rebirth in another body (then what?). All are believed in absolutely by their adherents, who are prepared to commit significant resources to their religious practice, of which this Monastery is an example.

It was, of course, the Roman Empire (later the Byzantine Empire) that popularised and spread this once obscure Jewish sect to become the world's greatest religion, with over two billion, collective, adherents to its multitude of sects, almost twice as many as Islam, followed by Hinduism and Buddhism. 

In the course of that growth, Monasteries, like this, and the many others we've visited, blossomed and sometimes struggled, across the face of the known world, capturing new hearts and minds. In this religion, Christianity, unless we turn to Jesus as our Saviour, our essence (soul) can be forever damned.  On the other hand if we accept and apply its tenets we can die safely:

'in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ,' as the Anglican Book of Common Prayer asserts. 

Yet at Christian funerals I've been alarmed that 'sure and certain' - 'hope of the Resurrection' seems just a little bit equivocal. And I find eternal life to be a bit worrying - how long is 'eternal' - a few hundred years might not be too bad - but a few hundred billion?

But for Anglicans and many non-Roman Christians there's a catch, like the Zoroastrians before them, the Resurrection will not come until Judgement Day (or the end of days).  So Roman Christians who, around a thousand years ago (in the late 11th century) got tired of waiting for the Second Coming, began to assert that there's a heavenly waiting room, Purgatory, from which great aunt Sally can look down to see how the living are going and revering her memory; and/or to receive the benefit of their prayers - whatever they might achieve in her favour. 

Over time other Christian communities have added their own modifications too, so when visiting places of Christian worship like this it's sometimes difficult to determine which of these traditions is, or was, being practiced.

It's sometimes difficult to determine which flavour of Christianity is being practiced

As you might have divined, I find the seemingly endless spectrum of religious practice very interesting and one of my greatest incentives to travel.  Yet, if anything, it's made me less of a believer than when I started.

For me, the idea that our capacity to think and experience 'drifts away', independently, once our body is no longer functioning, requires an awe-inspiring suspension of disbelief or - as some would say - Faith.

Speaking of faith, eventually another bus arrived and 'lo and behold' we were off to visit another temple. This time to a god long forgotten. 

The society that built it considered a temple to be a sound investment of their scarce resources because this god, like all gods, had to be worshiped.  In most religions 'worship' is a means of seeking: benefits or preference; or avoiding harm; and often an attempt to secure the particular god's intersession or support when the time comes for the mind to depart the body - on its way to another, metaphysical place. 

Sometimes these ancient works need modern physics to date them. In this case a handy stone was found nearby with an inscription in Greek that says it was built as a temple to the Armenian sun god Mihr by Tiridates I - king of the Arshakuni.  The Arshakuni ruled the Kingdom of Armenia from 54 to 428 CE.  And the religion seemed to work for them because for nearly four centuries their Kingdom of Armenia thrived, extending across Northern Turkey, Syria and Albania.

After the conversion of Armenia to Christianity by Gregory the Illuminator in 301, the Kingdom's days were numbered. But I doubt this demise had anything to do with abandoning, the now unrequited god, Mihr.  But he might reasonably have had a grievance, as he'd looked after them so well for nearly three centuries. It had more to do with Allah (Yahweh) and the Arabs.

Our local guide had an interesting claim about this too.  Apparently the Armenians taught the Greeks and Romans this style of building.  As this temple was built in 77 CE perhaps they'd also invented time travel.

Garni Temple - and the informative stone - written in Ancient Greek
It says this is a Temple to the Sun,
built in the 11th year of the reign of King Tiridates - 77 CE
There are more images in the Armenia Album See more...

After Christianisation this pretty little temple escaped the destruction metered out to other pagan places of worship and was used for various secular purposes, including the King's summer house.  Meanwhile a larger Christian church was built alongside.  At some point it was a guard post as there is some soldier inscribed graphiti, carved into one of the stone blocks.

Eventually both were in ruins but the temple has been of more interest to archaeologists and was restored, between 1969 and 1975, during the Soviet period, using the original stones as far as possible.  

Like many religious institutions it's in a spectacular location. The site contained the palace in Byzantine times and also features the ruins of a Roman Bath under a protective glasshouse.

The Christian ruins adjacent to the temple and the impressive setting - overlooking the Garni Gorge