Note 21 — Chapter XVI · EDGMIATSIN AND THE ARMENIAN CHURCH

Such is the legend which, with variations, has supplied the patent of the famous monastery, and invested the pilgrimage to the church of Christ descended and to the chapels of the martyrs with the character at once of a religious and of a patriotic act. The first of these edifices stands in the centre of the great quadrangle of the cloister, and, as we have seen, is believed to have been originally raised by St. Gregory the Illuminator, to whom the Armenians attribute their conversion to Christianity. The spot where the Saviour alighted and struck the broad earth with the mallet is situated about the middle of the building; and in the old days was indicated by a slab of hewn stone, 3 feet square and 5 feet in thickness.21 This stone was said to have been substituted for the original marble slab which was reputed to have been due to St. Gregory himself and to have been carried off by Shah Abbas.22 In the first quarter of the eighteenth century, during the pontificate of Astvatsadur, an elaborate altar was placed upon this hallowed site, and still stands there beneath the dome. It is surmounted by a canopy supported by four pillars of Tabriz marble, and is well seen in my illustration of the interior (Fig. 55). It appears to have replaced one of simpler design erected by the Katholikos Eleazar.