Located in the Caucasus, a meeting point between Europe and Asia, Armenia boasts of being the first state to have adopted Christianity around the year AD 314, followed by its neighbour Georgia twenty years later. Various encounters between this region’s indigenous peoples and many other groups led to centuries of church building across the landscape of narrow mountain valleys that stretch between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea.

On this episode of The PastCast, Christoph Baumer describes how the faith spread in the region, separating the myths – such as of a king who had been saved after being turned into a boar – from the facts. Baumer is the author of an article on the subject in the latest issue of Minerva magazine, which is also available in full on The Past website. On this episode he spoke with regular PastCast presenter, Calum Henderson.

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Christoph’s book, The history of the Caucasus, volume 1: at the crossroads of empires has been published by Bloomsbury and is available to buy on their website.