Mastara Church, also called the Church of Saint John or Surb Hovhannes, stands in Mastara in Aragatsotn Province, Armenia. It belongs to the Armenian Apostolic Church. It is believed to have been built in the fifth century and renovated in the tenth. Tradition holds that Gregory the Illuminator buried relics of Saint John the Baptist in its foundations. It follows Byzantine architectural styles, from a time when Armenia was part of the Byzantine Empire.
The plan is a variation of the cruciform plan with a central dome. A square has four projecting apses, which support a polygonal cupola. The design is comparable to Avan and the Church of St. Hripsime in Echmiadzin. Religious paintings of the seventh century were plastered over and not rediscovered until the twenty-first century.
It was fortified in the eighteenth century. The Soviet government closed it as a church in 1935 and used it as a farm storehouse. It reopened in 1993.
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