Description of the attraction
The Sevanavank Monastery, located about 6 km from the city of Sevan, on the Sevan peninsula, is one of the religious attractions of this region.
In the VIII Art. several monks settled on the island and began to build their own churches. Soon other monks joined them and began active construction of the monastery. First of all, the monks began to build walls, for this they cut out a large ledge in the rock and laid huge stone blocks on it. As a result, the wall surrounded the island of Sevan. Later, over the wall, the monks built a watchtower with a small gate and erected three churches, cells and several outbuildings.
The Surb-Astvatsatsin temples and the Surb-Arakelots temple were built in 874. The initiator of the construction was the daughter of King Ashot I - Mariam.
In 925, a terrible battle with the Arab army took place near the island - the Battle of Sevan. Then Tsar Ashot II the Iron completely defeated the Arabs and from that time the Armenian "golden age" began. Throughout its history, the monastery has been destroyed several times. It was closed during the Soviet years. In 1931, a terrible thing happened: the Surb-Astvatsatsin temple was dismantled into stones, from which a sanatorium was soon erected.
In 1981, the construction of a drainage tunnel began, as a result of which the water level in the lake dropped by almost 20 m and the island turned into a peninsula.
The churches of Surb-Astvatsatsin and Surb-Arakelots have survived to this day. Only the foundation remained from the Surb-Harutyun temple. The surviving temples, the largest of which is the Surb-Arakelots temple, are built of dark volcanic stone. The construction of the temples is rather unusual. They are small three-apse cross-domed churches. Among themselves, the temples differ only in the nature of the masonry.
Sevanavank Monastery, unlike other monastic complexes, is small and modest. At the same time, the main highlight of the monastery is the amazing views of the lake and surroundings that open from its windows.
