St.Bartughimeos Church in Hovtashen is located in Hovtashen village, Ararat region, Republic of Armenia. It was founded in 2012. As a visitor-pastor I have always felt the need to have St.Church, but logically I could see no way out or opportunity to build a church in the village since the village is poor and life there was hard.
Besides this, the  sectarians wished to buy the land of the village center and build a sectarian emperor. Being refused by the village headman they bought a land in the outskirts of the village, constructed a building and were quite excited. Being upset, the priest, the village headman and I decided to build a church, but the project, estimate ... .
In 2001 on St.Ghevodyants Priests’ Day in Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin during the assembly I requested His Holiness Karekin II to create a typical project in the villages and to provide us with the estimate so that we were aware of what was required for the construction. Being aware of the rural issues and the difficulties of our activity His Holiness the Patriarch did not wish to overload us with paperwork until we rose to an appropriate level and with this advice he seemed to have blessed us with a bold call to action and recommended us that we invite the best master of the village and entrust him to build the church within our possibilities. This was the advice from His Holiness.
Believing the Almighty God, inspired by the words of the patriarch in 2012 we commenced building our first planned church, the name of which was given from God as surprisingly logic it may seem. St.Tadeos Church was built in Masis town. Hence, St.Bartughimeos Church should be the next in the settlement (the next settlement was Hovtashen after Masis on the road from Yerevan to Khor Virap) so that the pilgrims travelling from Yerevan to Khor Virap would see St.Tadeos and St.Bartughimeos churches and heed the story of preachings of apostles before reaching Gregory the Illuminator and then visit Khor Virap, St.Gregory the Illuminator.
In addition, St.Tadeos and St.Bartughimeos apostles met each other for one time in the Ararat valley during their preaching trip. With great energy we started the construction and every time we were surprised, gladdened and inspired by unconditional and cordial participation of faithful people. A young architect was involved as a volunteer and provided us with a draft plan of the construction drawn by himself.
I do implore Almighty Lord to bless all those serving His work.