St. Mary Church, Urmia

St. Mary Church (Classical Syriac) is an ancient Assyrian church located in the city of Urmia, West Azerbaijan province, Iran. The current old building of the church belongs to the Sasanian era and its interior design is a combination of Sasanian and Arsacid architecture. A Chinese princess, who contributed to its reconstruction in 642 AD, had her name "Bafri" engraved on a stone on the church wall. The inscription was lost after the First World War. The famous Italian traveller Marco Polo is said to have visited the church. Briefly prior to the World War I, it was converted by Russians to a Russian Orthodox church. In the early 1960s, the old church was restored and a modern church with a spire was built adjacent to the ancient church.

Church data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).