St. Gevorg Zoravar Church
Built1890

The St. Gevorg Zoravar Church of Argel village was built in 1890 making it over 1200 years newer than the other St. Gevorg church 10 minutes up the "street". It seems to be the main church of the village. The church has a single entrance from the south that is underneath a tall bell tower. The bell tower is interesting because it seemingly combines the lower stone tower perfectly with a wooden cupola on top. Very skillful craftsmanship! Around the entrance of the church, there are also some 20th-century graves and you can the remnants of some khachkars in the wall. Above the entrance door, there is a small khachkar with the date of the church underneath it. To me, it looks older than 1890, but that's the date! The stones making up the walls of the church are many different colors and sizes which is interesting to see and a nice change from the equally sized orange or black colored tuff stone we see at many places. Here is the eastern wall behind the altar. Notice the stones on the corners are a lot larger than those in the middle. I wonder why$21 There is a red-colored khachkar at the bottom of the wall. But it looks to be placed upside down. Maybe someone made a mistake. The interior of the church is relatively plain. You can see wooden beams holding up the wooden roof which is cool to see. There are carpets on the ground and a simple altar on the eastern wall. Covering the wooden ceiling on the outside is a red sheet metal roof. It kind of looks like the roof of a simple Russian Orthodox church, which makes sense because this church was built when this area of Armenia was under the control of the Russian empire!

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