Armenian Church, Old Dhaka.

Armenian Christians, with a closer affinity to the Orthodox Church of the East, than the Catholic Christians who arrived in Bangladesh with Portuguese traders some hundred or so years earlier, arrived in the mid 18^th Century, before the fall of the Nawabs of Bengal and the east India Company takeover.

Needless to say, they were welcomed by both administrations as great and internationally connected masters of trade and commerce. The Moghuls may well also have found a use for their skills in their administrative organisations. One of the means of ensuring less corruption was to employ outsiders in the sentive areas of finance.

In 1781, the fine, distinctively Eastern styled Armenian Church, and its cemetery were dedicated, and have been arresting place and house of worship until today.

The uniqueness of its outward appearance is matched by the richness of its interior decor, of which a magnificent, unusual, mahogany spiral stairway to the loft is not the least of its appeals.

Admission is not hard; the caretaker is always willing to open the gateway to welcome visitors, expecting nothing more than a donation to the church.