Church of the Mother of God in Sarukhan
The Church of the Mother of God is the newer church in Sarukhan, part of the municipality of Gavar. The village also has an older church of Saint George. The diocese associates that church with Armenians who resettled from Bayazet in the first half of the nineteenth century. The more recent church has its own documented timeline, beginning with the laying of its foundation and continuing through the blessing of its cross to its opening.
The architect was Stepan Nalbandyan. The foundation was laid in 2007 and the main construction began the following year. Contemporary accounts of the design describe dressed tuff, stone arches and a dome. The builders looked to Armenian churches of the ninth and tenth centuries for architectural precedents. Those dates refer to the models that informed the project. The Sarukhan building itself belongs to the twenty-first century.
Bishop Markos Hovhannisyan blessed the cross in November 2014. On 13 January 2023 the same bishop consecrated the completed church. The two occasions explain why reports give different dates for the cross and the opening of the building. The benefactor Arayik Avetisyan-Chichoyan received the pontifical Order of Saint Gregory the Illuminator.