Armenian Christianity — Etchmiadzin and New Julfa

Caught between the Ottoman and Safavid empires, Armenians lived through one of the great forced migrations of their history: in 1604-05 Shah Abbas I, pursuing a scorched-earth strategy against the Ottomans, deported the population of Julfa and much of eastern Armenia into Persia, and many died on the road. Those who survived were settled in a new quarter across the river from Isfahan, New Julfa, where the cathedral known as the Vank was established in 1606 and where Armenian merchants built one of the most far-reaching trading networks in the world, from Amsterdam to Manila, funding their church as they went. Meanwhile the mother see at Etchmiadzin, now under Safavid rule, worked to rebuild itself as the centre of Armenian church life.