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NEW PLANS FOR IRRIGATION 207
of the Only Begotten descending from heaven—whence the
nåme Echmiadzin, which is supposed to mean " Where the
Only Begotten descended." But this may very well have
been invented later by the monks in order to justify the claim
of Echmiadzin to be the mother church ; whereas in reality
the church at Ashtishat (near Mush) was built first, and it
was there that the Katholikos resided until about a.d. 402,
when he moved to Vagharshapat.
It is, nevertheless, possible that Gregory and Trdat erected
a church on this ske near the royal palace, and that it and
other sacred buildings in Vagharshapat were destroyed by
the Persians in the fourth century. Probably the Katholikos
Nerses I, the Parthian (a.d. 353-373), restored the buildings ;
but the first authenticated restoration was the one initiated
by the Armenian chief Vahan Mamikonean about the year
484. Lazar of Pharpi tells us in his history of Armenia
(written in a.d. 505-510) that Vahan Mamikonean restored
with the utmost magnificence the holy metropolis which his
forefathers had built, but which had since fallen into disrepair.
By that date (after 461) the Katholikos had moved to Dvin
(cf. p. 199), and it was only after several other moves that he
returned to Vagharshapat, or Echmiadzin, in the fifteenth
century.
In a.d. 618 the cathedral was restored by the Katholikos
Komitas (611-628). According to Sebeos, writing later on
in the seventh century, the wooden dome of the church was
replaced by one made of stone ; and about twenty years after
that the Katholikos Nerses 111 (" the Builder ") may have
enlarged the inner hall of the church by moving the walls
out to the sides quadrilaterally. The church may then have
assumed practically its present shape ; but it has evidently been
restored several times in the course of the centuries. It
is difficult to tell how much is left of the old building, and
in addition several annexes have been built on in later times.
The porch in front of the west door, with an open belfry over
it, was completed in 1658, and the open belfries over the three
apses on the sides of the church were built in 1682 by the
Katholikos Eleazar. The large wing which completely covers
the east end and apse of the church, and contains a treasury
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