ARMENIAN MONASTERIES IN IRAN
AZG Armenian Daily
22/07/2009
The excellent Días del futuro pasado blog gives news with images and
drawings borrowed from the site of UNESCO about a group of monuments
we especially love having recently been included on the list of World
Heritage. Three monumental medieval Armenian fortified churches among
the majestically barren northern Iranian mountains, the monastery
of Saint Thaddeus, the monastery of Saint Stephen and the Dzordzor
chapel. The map taken from armenica.org only indicates the two larger
ones, the chapel was localized on it by ourselves.
All three sanctuaries lay in unpopulated valleys and have been
abandoned since times immemorial. A monastery used to stand along the
chapel as well, but it perished long ago. The environs are inhabited
by Kurd and Azeri herdsmen and peasants. No Armenians live around
here. One could regard it surprising to find so far from Armenia
and among a foreign and Muslim population three monasteries so large
that they would be considered noteworthy even in Armenia. But only
as long as he does not know that not the monasteries were built far
from Armenia, but it was Armenia that moved far away from them.
The map clearly shows that the monasteries were built on the central
part of historical Armenia, in the Vaspurakan region to the east of
Lake Van, which in the Middle Ages was also an independent kingdom
for some centuries. This was the cradle of the Armenian people, a rich
region, crossed by several caravan routes. At its eastern border lays
Tabriz, the gate of Eastern commerce in the times of Marco Polo, and
above it, on the side of the mountain river Araxes/Aras the Armenian
town of Jolfa which played a key role in Persian silk commerce
and in the age of the Renaissance it also had its own commercial
representation and Armenian colony in Amsterdam.
The reason of the destruction of this region and of historical Armenia
was that from the end of the Middle Ages it laid on the periphery of
three great powers. None of the three was strong enough to occupy and
also maintain the Armenian territories like ancient Persia and later
Byzantium did, but all the three had fear that it could serve to the
other two as an area of supply and as an eventual ally in case of an
offensive. Therefore all the three kept systematically depopulating
it for centuries. The Persian shah Great Abbas resettled in 1606
the almost complete Armenian population of the territory under his
dominion, including that of the town of Jolfa, to his new capital
Esfahan where their descendants still live in the Armenian quarter
New Jolfa. Two centuries later the Russians conquering the Caucasus
settled in the internal parts of their country the Armenian merchants
from the occupied territories. And during the First World War it was
the Turks who, having fear of an eventual expansion of the Armenian
province under Russian rule, definitely extirpated the more than one
million Armenian inhabitants of historical Armenia. Where Xenophon,
during his withdrawal with the Spartan army, but even the Hungarian
discoverer Ármin Vambery wandering from the Black Sea to Tabriz,
passed along a series of Armenian villages, the modern traveler
only sees sublime mountains and deserted platos, for after 1915 the
Turkish state systematically obliterated even the depopulated Armenian
settlements and medieval churches.
The monastery of Saint Thaddeus was built according to the tradition
by the Apostle Saint Judas Thaddeus, "the brother of the Lord"
and the first missionary of the Armenians in 66 A.D. According to
the fifth-century Armenian chronicler Movses Khorenatsi, he is also
buried here. If this is really so, then this church is equal in rang
with the Roman basilicas of Peter and Paul, the tomb in Compostela of
the Apostle Jacob, and the Madras cathedral of the Apostle Thomas,
only much less known. It was rebuilt in 1324 after an earthquake,
and because of its black and white stones local people call it with
a half Azeri, half Persian name Qara Kelisa, Black Church. You can
find a detailed description, many good images and drawings of it
at armenica.org.
The monastery of Saint Stephen was also mentioned in the 7th century,
but it was founded much earlier, according to the tradition by the
Apostle Bartholomeus, companion of Saint Thaddeus and co-protector,
together with him, of the Armenian church. This one is locally
called because of its light brown stones Qizil Kelisa, Golden
Church. A detailed documentation of this one also can be found at
armenica.org. Some kilometers from here you can still see the ruins
of the last Armenian village Darashamb. This monastery used to be
the cultural center of the region for centuries, with its library,
with its monastic school of theology and philosophy, and with its
scriptorium whose several manuscripts are still conserved from the
Armenian monastery of Venice to the Armenian museum of Esfahan.
The Dzordzor chapel is the lest known monument of this region
of monasteries, so much that this far it has not even figured
in the guides. It was built around the 10th century, and then
rebuilt after the great earthquake in 1324. Originally there was a
fortified monastery around it too, but it gradually declined after the
resettlement of the Armenian population in 1606. The chapel was also
rather ruined when in 1986-87, because of a dam built on the nearby
river, the Iranian state moved it to a point some half kilometer
higher and in the same time also restored it.