Ma`rifat Adyan

Armenian Christians are among the most active and influential religious communities in Iran. Knowing and interacting with this group constructively can be considered as one of the priorities of interfaith and intercultural discourse within Iran. Discussions of the principles of religion are certainly one of the earliest and most basic levels of discourse with this group, among which theology is of the utmost importance and must be given precedence. Using analytical artistic content analysis method and based on murals of Vanak Church in Isfahan, this article seeks to address this issue. The special sanctity and respect of religious painting in Orthodox settings, along with the consistency between artistic codes and the themes of the biblical context, make the research findings valid and reliable. Finally, it can be seen that art codes instill some themes such as being kind, superior, supervising, wise and even one and only, along with characteristics such as incarnation and humanity in the audience's mind. The identification and possible analysis of some hidden and obscure artistic codes, such as a dove in the eye-like space in the image, is one of the new findings of this research that can be an incentive for further research.