Holy Mother of God Armenian Church, Kessab

The Armenian Apostolic church in the centre of Kessab, known in Armenian as Surp Asdvadzadzin. It belongs to the Aleppo diocese of the Catholicosate of Cilicia and is the spiritual centre of the town’s Apostolic community. The building dates from the 18th century; the dome, bell towers and concrete roof were added in the 20th century. It was damaged in the 2023 earthquake, and repairs that began in 2024 were still under way in 2025.

Getting there

The church stands in the centre of town, with the Armenian Catholic and Armenian Evangelical churches in the same quarter. Kessab is about 60 km north of Latakia, an hour and a half up a winding mountain road.

How long it takes

Half an hour for the courtyard, the memorial and the façades. If repairs are still going on, the interior may be closed.

What to see

The plan is rectangular with three apses. There are two entrances, from the south and the west, and the hall takes its light from three windows in the west front and four in the south. The west bell tower was added in 1903 and the east one in the 1970s. The dome went up in the 1950s and the reinforced-concrete roof in the 1970s. Before all that, the church had already been repaired in 1809 and 1880. Inscriptions cover the walls and the courtyard.

Don’t miss

The marble khachkar in the courtyard. A khachkar is an Armenian memorial stone carved with a cross. This one was put up in 2009 at the initiative of the Ebligatyan family, in memory of the victims of the Armenian Genocide, and its sculptor was S. Gyulnazaryan. The people of Kessab were deported from the town in 1915.

The town’s three churches

Central Kessab has three Armenian churches: the Apostolic Holy Mother of God, the Armenian Catholic Church of Saint Michael, opened in 1925, and the Holy Trinity Armenian Evangelical Church, opened in 1970. In the 2014 attack the Catholic and Evangelical churches were burnt; the Evangelical church had been rebuilt by 2017. The Holy Mother of God church was damaged in the 2023 earthquake, and its repair began in 2024 under Archbishop Magar Ashkarian, the Armenian primate of Aleppo. In December 2024 he led a Christmas liturgy in Kessab.