[4] The Armenians were among the earliest merchants and traders to arrive in Singapore after Sir Stamford Raffles established it as a trading port in 1819.

The community already held religious services in Singapore by 1821, and the first priest, the Reverend Krikor Hovhannes (Gregory John), arrived in July 1827.

[5] The foundation stone was laid on 1 January 1835 by the Supreme, Archimandrite Reverend Thomas Gregorian, who also opened and consecrated the new church on Easter Sunday in 1836.

[8] In the late 1960s, when the Christian Cemetery at Fort Canning was cleared for a park, early Armenian tombstones there were moved into the Memorial Garden at the church ground.

[9] On 17 September 1979 vardapet Daron Djerejian, an Armenian priest from Nice, France, visited the church and conducted a Divine Liturgy.

[11] Divine Liturgy was performed at the church in 2001, on the occasion of the 1700th anniversary of adoption of Christianity as a state religion of Armenia.

[3][17] The original symmetrical design by Coleman included neither tower nor spire, instead it featured an octagonal cone supporting a small bell turret with Ionic columns.

The current spire, designed by an English architect George Maddock, is the second to replace the original bell turret by Coleman.

[6] Maddock had the pitched roof replaced by the present one and, to support the tower and spire, added the east portico around the apse where the chancel is.

The north, south and west porticos were designed to allow horse carriages to pull into the porches, where ladies may then alight and step directly into the church without soiling their dresses.

[6] Coleman's design is adapted to suit Singapore's tropical climate; for instance, the wide verandahs give shade and protect the timber-louvred windows on the ground floor from heavy downpours.