Varzahan Monastery

Varzahan (Armenian: Վարզահան վանք, Turkish: Uğrak Kiliseleri or Varzahan Kiliseleri), was an Armenian church founded in the 12th century near village Uğrak (formerly Varzahan), 10 km northwest of Bayburt, in eastern Turkey.

Varzahan
Varzahan Monastery in 1911.
Religion
AffiliationArmenian Apostolic Church
Statusdemolished sometime between the 1920s and the mid-1950s[1]
Location
Locationnear Uğrak village
Shown within Turkey
Geographic coordinates40.333333°N 40.116667°E / 40.333333; 40.116667
Architecture
StyleArmenian
Completed12th century

History

Situated in a settlement called Varzahan in Upper Armenia province of Historical Armenia's northern part. Varzahan was a large Armenian settlement in a 5.7 miles northwest to the Baberd city ( now Bayburt ) of a northernmost district of Upper Armenia called Sper. Most of its population was massacred by Turks during the 18th century. The monastery was damaged in the same period. The archaeologist Austin Henry Layard has described this place in 1849 while travelling from Trebizond to Mosul. Austin Henry Layard said:
---The only place of any interest, passed during our ride, was a small Armenian village, the remains of a larger, with the ruins of three early Christian churches, or Baptisteries.---

  • Lynch's 1898 photograph of the graveyard.
  • A drawing of one of the churches.

Ruines d'eglise Georgienes

See also

References
  1. Revue des Études Arméniennes, volume 2, 1965, page 184
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