Built in 630 AD a few hundred metres south of the cathedral, the Saint Gayane church is the third of the great seventh-century churches of Echmiadzin and shares their UNESCO listing. Gayane was the abbess who led Hripsime and the other nuns to Armenia; she was killed shortly after her younger companion.
Architecturally the church is a domed basilica, more solid and less inventive than Hripsime but still beautifully proportioned. The grounds include a small graveyard with khachkars, and the porch added in the seventeenth century gives a quiet space to sit. It is usually the least crowded of the three churches, which makes it a good place to escape the tour-bus rush at the cathedral.