Amaras Monastery

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Amaras Monastery

Amaras ( Armenian Ամարաս վանք Amarassi wank ) is a monastery of the Armenian Apostolic Church in the village of the same name, which in fact belongs to the Martuni province of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic . According to tradition, the first church was founded by Gregory the Illuminator at the beginning of the 4th century , the current church building dates from 1858. Based on style comparisons, the crypt can be dated to the 4th to 6th centuries.

The monastery was most recently damaged when it briefly fell into the hands of Azerbaijani troops in the course of the fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh in 1992 . Amaras is located southwest of Martuni near the village of Maçkalaşen ( Xocavənd Rayon , Azerbaijan).

history

The historical tradition is based on the work called Buzandaran Patmut'iwnk ' ("Epic History") of a supposedly late antique historian named Faustus of Byzantium , whose life dates are unknown, and on the Armenian historian of the 5th century, Moses von Choren , whose writings were probably compiled in the 9th century. According to this, the church is said to have been founded in the 4th century by the legendary Gregory the Illuminator, who founded the Armenian King Trdat III. baptized in 301, making the Kingdom of Armenia the first Christian state in history. A hundred years later the monastery was destroyed by Persian conquerors who wanted to bring the pagan belief back to Armenia. In the 5th century, Amaras was restored by King Watschagan II the Pious of Arzach. The inventor of the Armenian alphabet , Mesrop Mashtots , is said to have founded a school here, in which the newly invented script was tried out for teaching purposes for the first time.

The crypt is comparable to that in the burial church of Oshakan (5th century) and the church of the prophet Elias in Madaba (595/596). Annegret Plontke-Lüning therefore suggests a careful dating of the crypt of Grigoris, Gregory's grandson, to the 4th to 6th centuries.

When the Arabs invaded Armenia in 640, Amaras was sacked again. It was rebuilt in the 9th century under the patronage of Yesai, Prince of Disak. In the 18th century, the Melik Shahnasar, Prince of Waranda, restored the buildings of Amaras and built a massive fortress wall around the monastery. A modern Armenian text in the crypt reads:

“Tomb of St. Grigoris, Catholicos of Aghwank, grandson of St. Gregory. Born in 322,
consecrated in 340, martyred in 348 in Derbend by King Sanesan of Maskuz.
His holy remains were brought to Amaras by his disciples, deacons of Arzach. "

The Amaras Monastery was also the seat of the Catholicate of Albania .

literature

  • Annegret Plontke-Lüning: Early Christian architecture in the Caucasus. The development of Christian sacred buildings in Lazika, Iberia, Armenia, Albania and the border regions from the 4th to the 7th century (Austrian Academy of Sciences, Philosophical-Historical Class, Volume 359. Publications on Byzantium Research, Volume XIII) Verlag der Österreichische Academy of Sciences, Vienna 2007, enclosed CD-ROM: Catalog of preserved church buildings, pp. 16-19, ISBN 978-3-7001-3682-8

Web links

Commons : Amaras  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 39 ° 41 ′ 1.5 ″  N , 47 ° 3 ′ 26.1 ″  E