Background

In some legends about the early years of Christianity in Armenia, Guyaneh is described as Hripsimeh's wet nurse, but official church history marks her as the leader of the 39 maidens (a.k.a. "Hripsimeh, Guyaneh and the 37 maidens") who sought refuge at Vagharshapat from Roman persecution, and the first to be martyred, by stoning.

Shortly thereafter Hripsimeh and the other maidens were tortured, beheaded and their bodies piled in a common burial plot. Clandestinely reburied by Christians, Guyaneh's body was supposedly lost until Grigor' vision where Christ showed the location for building the martyria (shrines) for both Guyaneh and Hripsimeh.

Originally a small stone crypt, the current Martyrion was built between 387-428 under the patronage of the Katoghikos Sahak I, (of the adoption of the Mashtots alphabet fame). The church was built between during the reign of Katoghikos Yez'r (630-641 AD), and represents the last major edifice by the church before the Arab invasion of Armenia (which began in 640).

As a side note, Yez'r (also known as Ezer) is notoriously known in Armenian history for having bowed temporarily in 632-633 to pressures by the Byzantine emperor Heraclius for a forced union of the Armenian church to the Byzantine Church. Having rejected the counsel of Chaceldon a century earlier, this temporary rapprochement by Yez'r, and his successor after the Arab advance, further divided the Armenian clergy and populace at a time when unity was required.

Though built at roughly the same time, Guyaneh and Hripsimeh are very different in their styles and purposes. Hripsimeh is clearly a shrine for pilgrims, and little of the monastery structure survives. Guyaneh was a working monastery and center for learning, and the surviving structures allow one to imagine what it must have been like in the golden days of Armenia's monastic period, when monasteries like Guyaneh were prominent as universities, libraries, scientific centers, and preservers of its glorious manuscript and miniature art.

For this tour, see GUYANEH VANK plan. Points appear inside "()" of this plan.