PanARMENIAN.Net

St. Tadevos temple in Iran introduced for including in UNESCO’s world heritage
24.03.2007 15:10 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Workers of Iranian Cultural Issues Service and
Tourism Organization prepared a packet of documents for including
St. Tadevos temple (also known as `Kara-Kilisa’-Black Church) in the
UNESCO world heritage. They also prepared documents for 4 other
churches-St. Stepanos, Soursur, Chupan and the Church of the Blessed
Virgin. Soon the list will be passed to the corresponding bodies of
the United Nations, Iranian `Parsekh’ monthly reports.

According to Mohamed Hassan Hademzadeh, leading expert of the
organization in case if the program is approved a group of workers
from UNESCO International Council on Monuments and Historical Places
will arrive in Iran to examine the situation in churches.

The Church of St. Tadevos is one of the most ancient churches in the
world, its construction began more than 1700 years ago. Historians say
that apostle Tadevos is buried just here. He used to attend some
regions of Armenia and Persia to preach Christianity. The church is
situated in Dar-e-Sham village, 16 km West from Djulfa and 3 km South
from Arax River.

Soursur is situated in Barun village; it was built in 1314-15 thanks
to efforts of archbishop Zakarius. Aiming at preservation of this
historical monument during construction of Barun reservoir the
government assigned a large territory on the mountainside for the
church, which was situated 110 meters high. Currently there are 500
churches in Iran, 44 of that are included in the list of national
monuments.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress