The monastery is located on the Aparank Armenian plateau and is above sea level on the southwest side of Vankin Dağ. It lies northwest of the town of Aparank and south of Bahçesaray in Van province, Turkey. Historically, the complex was located in the township of Mamrtank or Mirja of the province of Moxoene, one of the fifteen provinces of historic Armenia that the VII century Armenian geographer Anania of Shirak.
History
The founding of the monastery is known because of panegyric written for the occasion by Gregory of Narek, the History of the Holy Cross Aparank. This monastery is an important part of the delivery of a relic of the True Cross by the Byzantine emperorsBasil II and Constantine VIII, inbound to sign with the kingdom of Vaspourakan, in which the province of Mokk is integrated since the reign of Gagik I of Vaspurakan. The relic is initially sheltered by Surb Hovhannes Karapet, the church founded to 950 by Father Davit, whose sanctity is to origin of the supply of emperors according to Gregory of Narek. It is then transferred to Surb Astvatsatsin , the church erected by his successor, the abbot and bishop Stepannos, which was solemnly consecrated in 983, in the presence of Ashot-Sahak of Vaspurakan and his brothers Gourgen-Khatchik and Senekerim-Hovhannes. Important cultural center at XV century, the monastery was renovated in 1629, and enlarged in following years by Abbot Simeon. It was abandoned in the early XIX century and turned into farm by Kurds in the second half. The gold disappeared.
Buildings
Founded in 950, Surb Hovhannes Karapet is the oldest church of the monastery and is located northwest of the other buildings; this is a small triconch inscribed in a rectangle, without corner piece, built in shale outside but brick inside. It is covered with a barrel vault to transverse arch. A mono-nave perhaps earlier he is assistant south. Consecrated in 983, Surb Astvatsatsin is a publicly listed partitioned cross surmounted by a drum, octagonal in outside but inside cylindrical, conical cap; the walls of the church, stone, are decorated with brick strips. The building is pierced by three gates, respectively to Surb Stepannos, the gavit and Surb Arakelots, the second being embraced and adorned with stalactites. The interior of the church was decorated with hagiographic paintings which there remains only the coating. Two contemporary mono-naves chapels, Surb Stepannos and Surb Arakelots are respectively contiguous to its southern façade and its northern façade. Backed by its western façade, gavit is erected in XVII century on another of X century and is of the four central pillars. Finally, a fountain was built in 1650 to the north of these buildings; it is an open cube in the west by a arc decorated with two snakes and coverage supported by two arcs diagonally.
