Urnayr is remembered as the first Christian king of Caucasian Albania. Of the Arsacid house, he is said in Albanian tradition to have travelled to Armenia after its conversion and to have been baptized by Gregory the Illuminator, thereafter declaring Christianity the religion of his realm and founding its earliest church structures, including bishoprics served from Amaras. Sources differ on the chronology: some historians place his baptism early in the fourth century, while others note that Urnayr was still a pagan warrior allied to Sasanian Persia at the battle against Rome in 371, and question the tradition's harmonization with the lifetime of Gregory. He nonetheless stands in Udi memory as the royal founder of the Christian kingdom.