The wind pushes, and the steppe moves before it.
Clouds sweep overhead, the short grass bends, and the only fixed points in the rolling landscape
are a snowcapped mountain and the distant silhouette of Mren cathedral.
As you walk a lonely hour from the nearest village, and wind whirls dust through the
whispering grass, details of the cathedral become visible: the conical tower, a lichen-spotted
roof, empty windows.
At last, clambering over the ruins that surround the church, you step inside.
Light spills through a collapsed wall, illuminating a floor torn apart by treasure hunters.
Faded figures of Christ and the prophets gaze down on the naked apse.
Over one of the side doors is a sculpted panel.
Although the stone is weathered, two figures are still visible, standing on either side
of a crucifix.
It’s far from obvious now, but fourteen centuries ago, when the church was new, few
would have mistaken its meaning.
This relief almost certainly commemorates March 21, 630, the day the Roman emperor Heraclius
formally returned the True Cross, the most sacred of all Christian relics, to the Church
of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem.
The restoration of the True Cross put a symbolic close to a war that had lasted a generation
and come very close to destroying the Roman Empire.
Heraclius had won that war with a series of daring campaigns launched from the high steppes
of Armenia – not far from the place where, just after the war’s end, an Armenian prince
built Mren Cathedral to celebrate his part in the victory.
Mren Cathedral was built near the ancient world’s most contested boundary: the frontier
between the Roman and Persian empires.
For seven centuries, beginning with the great conquests of Pompey, the eastern edge of the
Roman world ran from the Armenian plateau to the Arabian Desert.
The most hotly contested part of this frontier was always the center, where it bisected the
fertile plains of northern Mesopotamia.
But in times of war, any section of the thousand-mile border might become the center of a major
conflict.
Many of the wars between the Persians and Romans devolved into sieges of the fortress-cities
guarding the Mesopotamian frontier.
Otherwise, conflicts tended to consist of raids and counter-raids, back and forth, century
after century, none really changing, or really expected to change, a balance of power that
seemed settled in the natural order of things.
Then, at the end of the sixth century, that balance was shattered forever.
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Back to the Roman frontier.
One September morning in the year 590, the Roman sentries at Circesium, a border fort
in northern Mesopotamia, were startled to see a group of Persians in court dress galloping
from the east.
The riders drew up beneath the gates; and their leader, a man of about twenty, called
up in passable Greek, asking for an audience with the commanding officer.
When the gates were opened, the young Persian revealed that he was Khosrow, the newly-crowned
King of Persia, and that he was fleeing a palace coup.
The commander at Circesium sent the refugee king and his retainers to general headquarters
in nearby Hierapolis.
From there, Khosrow dispatched a delegation to Emperor Maurice, promising generous territorial
concessions in exchange for Roman aid.
Maurice agreed; and the following spring, Roman forces flooded into Persia, seizing
the capital and decisively defeating the rebels.
Khosrow was re-installed as king.
Then, in 602, Maurice was deposed in a mutiny.
The usurper, Phocas, executed the emperor and his six sons, displaying their heads in
Constantinople’s main forum.
There were rumors, however, that Theodosius, Maurice’s eldest son and heir, had escaped
by bribing the executioner; and a few weeks later, a man claiming to be Theodosius appeared
at the Persian court.
certainly aware that the real Theodosius was dead, Khosrow launched a massive attack on
the Roman frontier, ostensibly to restore the rightful emperor.
In a series of grueling sieges, the Persians seized one after another of the Mesopotamian
fortress-cities, breaking through the inmost line of defenses just as the Romans plunged
into a civil war.
The Roman governor of Africa had raised the standard of rebellion against Phocas, and
sent a fleet under his son Heraclius to Constantinople.
After gaining the allegiance of Egypt, Heraclius sailed on to the capital and personally beheaded
Phocas.
He was crowned emperor shortly afterward.
Taking advantage of the chaos at Constantinople, Khosrow occupied territory far inside the
old frontier.
Antioch fell, followed by Damascus.
Heraclius, who had been trying to shore up the collapsing Danube frontier, marched to
Syria at the head of the largest army he could scrape together.
His ill-trained troops, however, were defeated, and he was forced to retreat.
In 614, after a brief siege, the Persians took Jerusalem, burned most of the city’s
churches, and captured the True Cross.
The loss of this relic, revered throughout the Empire as the instrument of Christ’s
Passion, was a serious blow to Roman morale, especially after the Cross was carried back
to the Persian capital, and installed in the private chapel of Khosrow’s Christian wife
Shirin.
As one Persian army began to conquer Egypt, another marched across Anatolia to the Asian
suburbs of Constantinople.
Desperate to end the war, Heraclius attempted to negotiate with Khosrow, promising dramatic
territorial concessions if the Persian forces would withdraw.
By this point, however, Khosrow had achieved too much to return to the old status quo.
Syria, Palestine, and Egypt were annexed to the Persian Empire, and a Persian camp was
established across the Bosporus from Constantinople.
In the meantime, the Avars and Slavs swept over the Danube, and occupied most of the
Balkans and Greece.
Little remained of the Roman Empire.
Heraclius, however, continued to fight.
Melting down the gold and silver plate of Constantinople’s churches to pay his soldiers,
he reorganized Rome’s last army, supplementing the usual heavy infantry with brigades of
archers and light cavalry for fast-moving skirmishes.
With this force, he began to attack the Persian armies in Anatolia, and scored a series of
minor victories.
After outlasting a Persian counter-attack on Constantinople, he made the bold decision
to base his army in and around Armenia, where he could disrupt enemy troop movements and
launch raids into the Persian heartland.
This strategy proved remarkably successful.
From bases in Armenia and the Caucuses, Heraclius attacked cities throughout northern Mesopotamia,
forcing the Persians to withdraw troops from the conquered territories and engage with
him.
After Heraclius inflicted serious defeats on Persia’s two best generals, Khosrow ordered
a massive assault on Constantinople, knowing that the Roman Empire would collapse if the
city was taken.
Heraclius managed to crush one of the Persian armies marching on the capital.
The other, however, eluded him, and joined a colossal force of Avars and Slavs in a coordinated
attack on the Roman capital.
The Roman navy managed to keep the Persians on the Asian side of the Bosporus, sinking
the fleet of dugout canoes the Avars sent to bring their allies across.
On the European side, 80,000 men hurled themselves against the fortifications.
But the city’s towering triple walls held, and every assault was repulsed.
After six weeks, the Slavs and Avars retreated in disorder, and the Persians withdrew to
their camp.
Enraged, Khosrow ordered the execution of Shahrbaraz, the Persian general responsible
for coordinating the siege.
Heraclius, however, managed to intercept the messenger, and forwarded the death warrant
to Shahrbaraz with his compliments, suggesting that the Persian general might find it expedient
to switch sides.
Shahrbaraz did so, and withdrew his entire army to Syria.
Having neutralized Khosrow’s best general, Heraclius resumed his offensive, allying himself
with the nomadic Khazars to ravage Persian territory.
On a foggy morning in December 627, near the ruins of Nineveh, he encountered the largest
remaining Persian army.
The ensuing battle was savage – supposedly, Heraclius killed the enemy general in single
combat – but the Romans were victorious.
The next day, Heraclius marched on the now undefended Persian capital.
When Khosrow refused to negotiate a peace, he was deposed and executed by his nobles,
who immediately began talks to end the war.
The frontier was restored to its original place, all Persian troops were recalled home,
and Heraclius began a triumphal march back to Constantinople.
Along the way, he stopped in Armenia, where he spent a few weeks receiving the submission
of the local nobles.
As he marched homeward, Heraclius passed within a few miles of the newly-dug foundations of
Mren Cathedral, which one of the greatest Armenian princes had just begun to construct.
Although the design of this new church borrowed from both Persian and Roman architectural
styles, its dome was likely inspired by Hagia Sophia.
It was at that church, in September 629, that Heraclius celebrated his victory over the
Persians, the True Cross suspended on gilded chains over the high altar.
The following year, during a tour of the territories recovered from the Persians, Heraclius restored
the relic to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem.
Back in Armenia, Heraclius’ restoration of the True Cross was chosen as the subject
of the relief over the north door of Mren Cathedral.
As a sign of his humility before God, the emperor was shown without crown or scepter.
The warhorse standing a short distance from him, however, reminds the viewer of Heraclius’
campaign to save the Empire, concluded only a few years before.
As the cathedral rose, the Roman Empire was at peace.
But before construction was completed, and before Rome or Persia could rebuild their
militaries, a new threat emerged.
Fast-moving armies of Arab horsemen, unified and fired by the new religion of Islam, tore
through the eastern frontier, and swiftly conquered Syria, Palestine, and Egypt.
By the time Mren cathedral was completed, around 640, the world Heraclius had fought
so hard to restore was vanishing.
The Persian Empire would disintegrate within a decade.
And although the Roman Empire would survive, it would emerge from ordeal much smaller and
profoundly changed.
In this sense, the years in which Mren Cathedral was constructed mark the end of the antique
world, and the beginning of a new and very different era.
Through the ensuing centuries, as Arab and Byzantine raiding parties passed back and
forth to the south, a town grew up around Mren cathedral; but then borders shifted,
and trade routes moved, and the town sank back into the steppes.
Six hundred years of abandonment have drawn the cathedral, brick by brick, down to the
whispering grass.
Birds call in the dome, and the sun shines through the collapsing walls as the wind pushes,
and the steppe moves before it.
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Thanks for watching.