Narekawank
Coordinates: 38 ° 17 ′ 48.8 " N , 42 ° 55 ′ 41.7" E
Narekawank ( Armenian Նարեկավանք , Turkish Nareg manastırı ) was an Armenian apostolic monastery of the medieval Armenian Kingdom of Vaspurakan near the southern bank of Lake Van (now the Eastern Anatolia region in Turkey ), which was destroyed by the Turkish army in the genocide of the Armenians in 1915 .
The monastery was built in the 10th century during the reign of Gagik I (908–943), King of the Kingdom of Vaspurakan. The Narekawank Monastery was an important intellectual center whose most famous student and scholar was Gregory of Narek .
In the 18th century the monastery was completely renovated and expanded. In 1812 it received a bell tower, and in 1843–1858 the dome and building were renovated.
After the monastery had already been attacked during the Hamid massacre and a good dozen monks were killed in the process, services and monastery operations finally came to a standstill in 1915. In 1951 the monastery was completely destroyed on the orders of the provincial governor and a mosque was later built on the site.
According to Sevan Nişanyan , the name of the monastery has no meaning in Armenian. Narég was the name of the village on the territory of which the monastery was located. Today Kurdish -populated village was renamed after the expulsion of the Armenians in Yemişlik.
On the day of the consecration of the Holy Cross Church in Akdamar in 2007, Archbishop Mesrob II , Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople, also visited the village of Narég; but six years earlier only an archway of the Nareg monastery could be seen.