Iranian churches added to UNESCO World Heritage List

The Iranian churches St. Thaddeus, St. Stephanus, and Dzordzor (Zorzor) in East Azerbaijan Province and West Azerbaijan Province were registered on the UNESCO’s World Heritage List. The decision was made during the World Heritage Committee session in Quebec, Canada on July 6.

The UNESCO website described the monuments as “examples of outstanding universal value of the Armenian architectural and decorative traditions” and adding, “They bear testimony to very important interchanges with the other regional cultures, in particular the Byzantine, Orthodox and Persian.”

The committee also asked Iran to give an inclusive report on the modifications to be carried out on the Jahan-Nama Tower by February 2009, Iranian representative in the session Mehdi Musavi told the Persian service of CHN on Monday.

The tower spoils the horizontal view of the Naqsh-e Jahan Square, another Iranian complex in Isfahan, which was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1979.

In addition, the committee decided Iran’s Bam Cultural Landscape will remain on UNESCO’s List of World Heritage in Danger until 2010. Bam, a historical city located in Kerman Province in southern Iran, was almost totally destroyed by a devastating earthquake on December 26, 2003.

Iranian sites on World Heritage List:

1. Chogha Zanbil, Khuzestan Province, 1979

2. Persepolis, Fars Province, 1979

3. Naqsh-e Jahan Square, Isfahan Province, 1979

4. Takht-e Soleiman, West Azerbaijan Province, 2003

5. Pasargad, Fars Province, 2004

6. The city of Bam and its Cultural Landscape, Kerman Province, 2004

7. Soltanieh Dome, Zanjan Province, 2005

8. Bisotun, Kermanshah Province, 2006

9. Northwest Iran’s historic churches St. Thaddeus and St. Stephanus, West Azerbaijan Province; and Dzordzor (Zorzor), East Azerbaijan Province, 2008

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