When the Armenian church threw its doors open to an American photographer

Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, begun in the fourth century. (All photos by Winslow Martin)

Winslow Martin was photographing caregivers for a Boston newspaper when he met a “humanist on steroids” who would lead him halfway around the world.

It was 1998 and Father Dajad Davidian was nearing retirement when he invited Martin to follow him around Watertown, Massachusetts, where he kept up a frantic pace ministering to the St James Armenian Apostolic Church community. “Literally morning to night he practiced his hands-on way of helping people. It's almost like he never slept,” Martin says.

The following year Martin accompanied Davidian to Armenia, when he traveled to pay his respects to the dying catholicos, Karekin I, a teacher from seminary in Beirut. A few months later Martin followed Davidian to Armenia again, this time for the election of Karekin II.

"Father Dajad allowed me complete access to the church, but what was amazing was that he gave me amazing access to Armenia,” Martin recalls. “He opened every door directly or indirectly."

On October 27, 1999, Martin was at the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin when Karekin II was elected to lead the Armenian church. At nearly the exact moment he was chosen, a shooting in Armenia’s parliament left eight political leaders, including the prime minister dead, with 50 hostages still in captivity. Martin was with the new catholicos when he received the terrible news.

He stayed to document the aftermath and has traveled back many times in the subsequent decades.

This is the first in a two-part series of Martin’s Armenia photographs.

Greetings after Sunday services in Watertown

Nursing home, Watertown

Father Dajad entertaining kids in a Yerevan courtyard

Memorial candles

St Hripsime Church, Etchmiadzin

Father Dajad debating with the Mayor of Abovian

Sunday prayer, Etchmiadzin

Archbishop Mesrob II Mutafyan, the Armenian patriarch of Constantinople (left), toasts with Archbishop Pargev Martirosyan, primate of the Diocese of Artsakh (center), at a post-baptism banquet