Vorotnavank
Vorotnavank ( Armenian Որոտնավանք Worotnavank ), other romanizations Vorotnavank, Orotnavank , is a former monastery of the Armenian Apostolic Church in the southern Armenian province of Syunik . The oldest church is the Stephanuskirche ( Surb Stephanos ), it was completed in the year 1000. The larger St. John the Baptist Church ( Surb Karapet ), a chapel, the ruins of several outbuildings and part of the fortress wall have also been preserved from the extensive complex .
location
Coordinates: 39 ° 29 ′ 44.2 ″ N , 46 ° 7 ′ 19.9 ″ E
Vorotnavank is located in the Worotan valley about 13 kilometers southeast of the provincial capital Sissian . The road from Sissian crosses halfway through the village of Aghitu and runs high above on the left side of the river, which winds through the abruptly sloping basalt rocks of the gorge in the area of the monastery. The hills above the monastery, interspersed with rocky areas, are treeless and only overgrown with grass. The monastery grounds occupy a small flat area above the narrowest part of the gorge at this point. On the slope in the south, apple trees thrive below the fortress wall. From the monastery the road continues in serpentines down into the fertile and green valley of the Vorotan, after almost two kilometers past the fortress hill Vorotnaberd and the village of Vorotan , which is located at a bend in the river behind the hill.
history
According to legend, as with many churches, St. Gregory (around 257 - around 331), the first head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, built the first church on the site of an ancient temple. Nothing is known about possible early Christian predecessor buildings. Historians report about the monastery from the year 1000, when the main church Surb Stephanos , built on behalf of Shahanducht, the wife of King Smbat I of Sjunik, was consecrated. Under her son, Prince Sevada, the larger cross- domed church Surb Karapet for John the Baptist was completed in the southeast adjacent to the Stephanuskirche in 1006 . Both emerge from a founding inscription.
A number of outbuildings with workshops and apartments as well as the massive fortress wall were added under Shahandah. The importance of the monastery was to be embodied by a stone stele in the central courtyard, which was crowned by a Khachkar . It was a sign that official religious and political gatherings could take place here. The portico in the west of the Surb Karapet Church and other buildings in the ensemble date from a later period. In the Middle Ages, the monastery was a destination for pilgrims who believed in miracles, who promised healing from snakebites and from infectious diseases caused by insects.
After the Seljuks ravaged the monastery in 1104, it was not rebuilt until the princes of the Orbelian dynasty, whose power base was Orbeti in southern Georgia in the 12th century, ruled independently over the Syunik region in the mid-13th century. There, in addition to their main monastery, Noravank, they also supported Vorotnavank and other monasteries. Sjunik became a retreat for Armenian culture when, at the same time, the areas further north were under the influence of the Mongol invaders. The Church of John the Baptist was repaired in 1315 by Princes Burtel and Pughta Orbelian.
The 14th century was a period of cultural prosperity for Sjunik under the patronage of the Orbelian family. While the architect and book illustrator Momik worked in Noravank and designed the Areni Church , completed in 1321 , one of the most famous personalities in Vorotnavank was the philosopher Hovhannes Voronetsi (1315-1388/98), a graduate of the University of Gladzor founded by Momik in 1282 (located in Tanahat Monastery ). Voronetsi taught in Vorotnavank before founding the University ( vardapetaran ) of the Tatev Monastery with the support of the Orbelian family . Some inscriptions go back to him and local rulers.
A manuscript written in Tatev Monastery (archived as Matenadaran 9247a ) mentions an earthquake in 1406, in which many monks of the monastery died and considerable structural damage occurred. As a result, according to a contemporary poem, an epidemic and an emigration of the population from the region should have occurred. In 1438 the monastery was restored again.
The monastery was completely destroyed by several Timurid raids and abandoned as a result of the deportations of Armenians to Persia in the 16th century. After reopening in the 17th century, monastery life only functioned modestly until the 19th century. An earthquake in 1931, in which the Tatev monastery was also badly damaged, caused the dome of the main church, its south wall and other walls to collapse. Restorations began in the 1980s and have not yet been fully completed. At the end of 2013, part of the stone slab covering of the portico was still missing from the exterior work.
Monastery complex
The main buildings of the monastery are nested in a row from the entrance on the east to west. To the southern slope and the western steep drop above the gorge, the area is limited by a fortress wall, which is reinforced at regular intervals by semicircular protrusions. In the western area, separated from the sacred buildings by an old cemetery, the ruins of some outbuildings have been preserved. A secret tunnel as far as Vorotnaberd Fortress was intended for use in the event of a siege.
Stephanuskirche
The oldest church in the center of the complex, built in honor of Saint Stephen , is a single-nave hall church with a barrel vault and a deep horseshoe-shaped apse . Three steps on the right side lead up to the raised altar apse (bema). The north-eastern rectangular side room is accessible directly from the side of the apse and has a pedestal with an altar stone in front of the east wall. The slightly larger rectangular side room in the southeast is entered at the foot of the stairs from the nave. There is also another narrow side room in the northwest. This is connected to the northeastern side room via an intermediate chamber. The walls are completely unadorned as a result of the multiple looting and destruction. A side room is missing in the south-west, because a long portico is in front of the south wall, the barrel vault of which is supported by a pillar arcade and corresponding wall templates connected by round arches on the side of the nave. Large grave slabs are inlaid in the floor of the portico, commemorating important monks and generous donors. On the eastern front side there are two old kachkars.
In the west, the nave is adjoined by a long rectangular room with a barrel vault, which is divided in the middle by a belt arch over side wall pillars. The room is connected to the portico with a door to the nave and another in the central south wall. When Armenian architecture began to revive after a phase of stagnation in the 9th century and the monasteries were expanded, the monks needed a meeting place for secular purposes. The extensions with initially simple barrel vaults were placed in front of the west entrances to the churches. In the 11th century they got the characteristic shape of a Gawit . The anteroom in front of the Stephanuskirche is an example of the beginning of this development, which probably took place in the Sjunik region.
John the Baptist Church
The church of John the Baptist from 1006, Surb Karapet , borders the southeast corner of the Stephanuskirche. The cross-domed church is a trikonchos , the three semicircular cones of which together with a rectangular nave on the west side form a cross-shaped plan. The areas in the corners enclosed in the approximately square casing are filled by rectangular adjoining rooms. The corners of the crossing are connected to each other by belt arches. From the central square, pendentives act as connecting links in the corners for the transition to the inside and outside circular tambour . The low passages to the eastern side rooms are in the walls of the northern and southern conches. The side rooms in the west are accessible from the west arm. No paintings remained on the rebuilt dome, in case the dome was painted. The only remaining painting on the north cone shows a large winged creature in front of a blue starry sky, surrounded by smaller animal and human figures. The church is said to have been painted by the same school that was active in Tatew.
The dome of the highest church in the group is surmounted by a conical roof. Except for the slightly profiled lintel stones above the narrow, arched window slots, the outer facades are practically unadorned. Only the east wall is divided by triangular niches reaching almost to the edge of the roof. The two entrances are to the south and west. The portico, which was added to the west at a later time, juts out over the church in the south. Its vault is slightly ogival and is divided by two belt arches.
chapel
The third church was added to the portico in front of the Stephanuskirche in the southwest. On the outside, it has the simple shape of a rectangular house with a gable roof. The single-nave interior is structured by a belt arch on the horseshoe-shaped raised altar apse. It is unusual that the only entrance is on the north side and can only be reached via a narrow path that separates the chapel from an adjacent larger building. The neighboring building was possibly used as a storage room. With the exception of the north side, a narrow arched window in each wall of the chapel ensures sparse light.
literature
- Paolo Cuneo: Architettura Armena dal quarto al diciannovesimo secolo. Volume 1. De Luca Editore, Rome 1988, pp. 213f
Web links
- Rick Ney: Siunik . (PDF; 1.6 MB) TourArmenia, 2009, p. 16f
- Vorotnavank Monastery. Armeniapedia
Individual evidence
- ^ Vorotnavank: The Monastery of Thunder. Sevan360.com (picture of the ruins from the beginning of the 20th century)
- ^ Tatev Monastery. ( Memento of the original from July 23, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. welcomearmenia.com
- ^ Arkady Karakhanian, Yelena Abgaryan: Evidence of historical seismicity and volcanism in the Armenian Highland (from Armenian and other sources). (PDF; 1.2 MB) In: Annals of Geophysics, Vol. 47, N. 2/3, April – June 2004, pp. 799f
- ^ Jean-Michel Thierry: Armenian Art . Herder, Freiburg 1988, p. 129
