King Ashot III made Ani capital in 961, after which the city emerged as a prosperous urban center with 100,000 residents at its height.

[45] A silver cross originally stood on its conical dome and a crystal chandelier, bought by King Smbat II from India, hang in the cathedral.

[59] According to Matthew of Edessa, its silver cross was removed by the Seljuks and transferred to a mosque in Nakhchivan, where it was placed under the threshold, destined to be trodden upon.

[11] Vercihan Ziflioğlu wrote for Hürriyet that it was only in 2009 that Armenia halted blasting activities, reportedly, after Turkey's complaint at the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS).

[74] Turkey's Minister of Culture Ertuğrul Günay stated "We hope that giving new life to the remains of once-splendid buildings, such as the Ani Cathedral and church, will bring new economic opportunities to the region.

Osman Kavala, president of Anadolu Kültür, stated that the lack of formal bilateral relations between Armenia and Turkey may have prevented Armenian experts from being included in the project.

[77] Yavuz Özkaya, an architect who participated in the projects carried out in Ani, stated in March 2014 that studies on preservation and restoration of the cathedral were completed and they had begun to be implemented.

[79] According to art historian Heghnar Zeitlian Watenpaugh the addition "would secure significant benefits in protection, research expertise, and funding.

In 2021 WMF, with the support of the International alliance for the protection of heritage in conflict areas (ALIPH Foundation), began a second phase "focusing on the implementation of a long-term intervention plan for the restoration of the entire cathedral.

[30] The dome was supported on pendentives and stood atop the "intersection of four barrel vaults elevated to a cruciform design and topped with gabled roofs."

In the interior, "freestanding piers divide the space into three aisles, the nave of which terminates in an eastern apse flanked by two story side chapels.

She added, "The blind arcade with slender columns and ornate arches, the delicate interlaces carved around the door and windows add to the beauty of the exterior.

[9] Christina Maranci suggested what she describes as an "extremely tentative" hypothesis that the relatively large proportion of the cathedral may have reflected architect Trdat's memory of the "vast continuous spaces" of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, the dome of which he had repaired.

Karl Schnaase disparagingly described it as "hardly the size of a village church",[91] while H. F. B. Lynch argued that it is small if judged by European standards, but is "nevertheless a stately building.

The authors of Global History of Architecture (2010) wrote that it "deserves to be listed among the principal monuments of the time because of its pointed arches and clustered columns and piers.

"[33] Similarly, Sirarpie Der Nersessian argued that it "deserves to be listed among the important examples of medieval architecture",[86] while David Roden Buxton suggested that it "is worthy ... of far greater renown that actually surrounds it.

[99] David Marshall Lang wrote that the cathedral's building techniques are "far ahead of the contemporary Anglo-Saxon and Norman architecture of western Europe.

"[100] Richard Phené Spiers wrote in the 11th century of Encyclopædia Britannica (1911): The main church of Marmashen monastery (dated 988–1029), believed to have been built by the same architect, Trdat,[101] is considered a miniature of Ani Cathedral.

[102] Richard Krautheimer wrote that the exterior walls of both the church of Marmashen and the cathedral of Ani are "articulated by blind arcades resting on slender colonnettes, single or in pairs.

"[114] Cecil Stewart noted that the most interesting features of the cathedral are its "pointed arches and vaults and the clustering or coupling of the columns in the Gothic manner.

"[36] David Marshall Lang argued that the appearance of pointed arches and clustered piers together is "considered one of the hallmarks of mature Gothic architecture.

"[100] Christina Maranci argues that the cathedral, with it "profiled piers and arches ... anticipate, in their linear elegance, the Gothic styles of buildings like Notre-Dame.

"[116] Rouben Paul Adalian wrote, "the interior with its pointed arches and clustered piers rising to the ribbed ceiling vaults, included innovations whose parallels would appear in Gothic architecture in Western Europe a century later.

"[118] Art historian Sirarpie Der Nersessian rejected the postulated "proto-Gothic" character of the ogival arches of the cathedral of Ani which, she argued, "do not serve the same function in supporting the vault.

"[119] Although Adrian Stokes saw the cathedral as holding "some balance between wall architecture and the linear Gothic to come," he did not find "the feeling for mass and space that transfixes him at Rimini or Luciano Laurana's Quattro Cento courtyard in the Palace of Urbino.

"[109] The website Virtual Ani writes that there is "no evidence to indicate that there was a connection between Armenian architecture and the development of the Gothic style in Western Europe.

"[44] Lucy Der Manuelian argues that there is a documented evidence of the presence of Armenians in Western Europe during the Middle Ages, who could have carried this information to the West.

The formal occasion was to commemorate the 1064 Seljuk conquest of Ani, but it was widely seen as a nationalist retaliation for the Christian mass—the first since the Armenian Genocide of 1915—at the Cathedral of Aghtamar at Lake Van on September 19.

[20][59] The prayer was authorized by the Turkish Ministry of Culture,[58] and was attended by believers from Azerbaijan and broadcast live by three Azerbaijani TV channels.

"[132] Hürriyet Daily News columnist Yusuf Kanlı described it as an "attempt [by Bahçeli] to woo and win back the lost nationalist-conservative vote.