Echmiadzin Church Center of the Armenian Apostolic Church.
Echmiadzin is not far from Yerevan. This place is worshipped by Armenians throughout the world since here there is the center of the Armenian Apostolic Church.
Echmiadzin - the former name of which is Vagharshapat, was founded in the first half of the II century on the place of the ancient settlement of Vardgesavan. Since 163, after the destruction of Artashat by Romans, the city had become the political, cultural, and then religious and educational center of the country.
In 301 Christianity became the state religion of Armenia. According to a legend, the first patriarch Gregory the Illuminator dreamt, that the only-begotten, that is Christ, came down from the sky with a fiery hammer in his hands and specified the place for the construction of the cathedral. On this place in 303, in place of an ancient pagan temple, the church named ECHMIADZIN was founded which in Armenian means "the place of the advent of the only son".