Pope John Paul II declared in his homily in Yerevan's St. Gregory the Illuminator Cathedral: We are close to Mount Ararat, where tradition says that the Ark of Noah came to rest. Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, also mentioned Mount Ararat as the resting place of Noah's Ark in his speech at the Etchmiadzin Cathedral during his visit to Armenia in 2010.