Monastery of Saint Minas of Kes
| Monastery of Saint Minas of Kes ԿԵՍԻ Սբ. Մինաս վանք |
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|---|---|
| Construction year: | 1790 |
| Style elements : | Armenian architecture |
| Location: | 39 ° 49 '30.7 " N , 41 ° 11' 31.6" E |
| Location: |
Gezköy Erzurum , Turkey |
| Purpose: | Armenian Apostolic Monastery |
The monastery of Sankt Minas von Kes ( Armenian Կեսի Սուրբ Մինաս վանք ) is an Armenian monastery from 1790 in eastern Turkey, which has now been destroyed . The monastery church was a domed basilica with columns . It served as a monastery until the Armenian genocide and is now located at the western end of the village of Gezköy in the Erzurum province . The village of Gezköy (formerly known as "Kes") is 9 km west of the center of Erzurum town .
etymology
Saint Minas is a martyr and miracle worker of the Christian churches. The toponym "Kes" ( Armenian Կես ) stands for "half" in Western Armenian , which was the former historical name of the village of Gezköy .
history
The Surp Minas was built in 1790, but had replaced an older building, as the year 1740 appears on a Khachkar that was built into the walls of the church . At the beginning of the 19th century there were over 100 Armenian villages in the Erzurum Plain - towards the end of the century this number fell to around 50 , partly due to the Erzurum massacre . The brief Russian conquest of parts of the Ottoman Empire during the Russo-Ottoman War from 1828 to 1829 led to the displacement of around 10,000 Armenian families, mostly from the Vilayet Erzurum , an estimated 75,000 people, who accompanied the retreating Russian units into the old Russian territory . In addition, there was an escape of the local Armenian population from the region to Russian-controlled territory after the Crimean War from 1853 to 1856, and the Russo-Ottoman War 1877–78 , when Russian units again conquered Erzurum. In the decade before the Armenian genocide from 1915, the village of Kes had 1,103 Armenian residents (who made up 144 households) and 170 Muslim residents. Kes also had a school with 100 students. The village church in Kes was still the Surp Minas.
The monastery was badly damaged during the bloody massacres in the wake of the Armenian genocide in World War I.
Web links
- Surp Minas Church in Gezköy. VirtualAni
Individual evidence
- ↑ These details about the church are from Armenian Architecture: A Documented Photo-Archival Collection on Microfiche , VL Parsegian (Projektdirekror), Issue 5, Zug, Switzerland, 1980. - The plan of the St. Minas church used on this webpage is adapted from a plan published in this microfiche.
- ↑ These population figures are from Les Arméniens dans l'Empire Ottoman à la veille du Génocide by Raymond H. Kevorkian and Paul B. Paboujian, Paris, 1992