The Medieval Monastery of Geghard 🇦🇲 Armenia

The most iconic image of Armenia is Mount Ararat. The mountain actually lies within the modern borders of Turkey, but such is its enormity that it's visible from most parts of Yerevan. Armenia is a museum of nature. The amazing diversity of nature, mountain ridges and peaks, alpine lakes and rivers, deep gorges and mountain passes, abrupt landscape variations, give unique geographical features to the Armenian identity. The landscape of the country identified the features of its architecture life. Severe historical fate has also left its mark. Armenia, located at the crossroads of routes between East and West, was a permanent place of clashes between the great empires of ancient and medieval times. Faith, language and writing helped to withstand the vagaries of history. The complex of medieval buildings of Djekart Monastery is set into a landscape of great natural beauty, surrounded by towering cliffs at the entrance to the Arsat Valley. Djekart Monastery is considered to represent the high point of Armenian medieval architecture. The monastery was founded in the 4th century, according to tradition by Saint Gregory the Illuminator. The site is that of a spring arising in a cave which has been sacred in pre-Christian times, hence one of the names by which it was known, the Monastery of the Cave. The first monastery was destroyed by Arabs in the 9th century, but it was re-established and was flourishing again in the 13th century under the patronage of Prussian princes who were buried there. They provided it with an irrigation system in 1200, as well as paying for the erection and reconstruction of most of the churches in the complex. At this time, it was also known as the Monastery of Seven Churches and the Monastery of the 40 Altars. The monastery was more famous because of the relics that it housed. The most celebrated of these was the spear which had wounded Christ on the cross, allegedly brought there by the Apostle Thaddeus, from which comes its present name, the Monastery of the Spear, first recorded in a document of 1250. This made it a popular place of pilgrimage for Armenian Christians over many centuries. The main monuments of Djekart take up the middle of the monastery yard, surrounded with walls and towers on three sides and blocked by a steep cliff on the fourth one. This gives the example a unique appearance. Erected over a short period, the monuments make up a single architectural and artistic hole in which ground structures are compositionally and stylistically connected with the premises hewn in rock. Armenia's greatest role, however, in the fields of culture and civilization during the centuries succeeding the acceptance of the Christianity, was in its architecture the most genuine reflection of the thoughts and spirits of a people and an era. It is in architecture that Armenia has proved itself as a complete link between East and West, and in architecture that the Armenian people, with its strength, originality and special characters, has displayed the power of its creativity. During its infancy, it had a limited interest in art, since it was regarded as a symbol of sin and a school for spreading the heathen beliefs and moral decadence. Over time, however, and especially from the 4th century onwards, with the wider acceptance of Christianity, first in Armenia and later in the Roman Empire, there was a significant increase in the religious architecture. From this time, people and their rulers expressed their love and affection for the new religion through enormous magnificent buildings dedicated to Christianity. The main church is in the classical Armenian form, an equal-armed cross inscribed in a square in a plan and covered with a dome and a square base. It is linked with the base by vaulting. The east arm of the cross terminates in an apse, the reminder being square. In the corners, there are small barrel-vaulted two-storey chapels. On the internal walls, there are many inscriptions recording donations. Ten years later, a gavet, an entrance hall, was built on the west side of this church to link it with the first rock-cut church. As is customary in medieval Armenian architecture, the structure of this building reproduces that of the peasant hut, in which four massive freestanding columns in the center support a roof of wooden beams with a hole in the center to admit light. The ecclesiastical version in stone is an imposing structure. The peripheral spaces resulting from the location of the columns are variously roofed, whilst the central space is crowned by a dome with stalactites, the most perfect example of this technique anywhere in Armenia. The main church was built in 1215 under the auspice of the brothers Sakar and Ivan, the generals of Queen Tamar of Georgia, who took back most of Armenia from the Turks. The monastery was a popular place of pilgrimage for Armenian Christians over many centuries. Relics of the apostles Andrew and John were donated in the 12th century, and pious visitors made numerous grants of land, money, manuscripts, etc. over the succeeding centuries. The beginning of the 3rd century BC were the time of an event that marked deeply the identity of the Armenian people and was decisive for its history, the conversion to Christianity. The tradition attributes to the first announcement of the gospels to the apostles, Thaddeus and Bartholomew, but according to the legend, the conversion of the Armenian court took place thanks to the work of Saint George the Illuminator, who, in 301 BC, baptized King Tiridates III after curing him of a chronical illness. However, the historical reasons of the conversion of Tiridates were mainly political. Serene, through the adoption of a religious cult, was persecuted in the confining Roman Empire, meant to put forward a national religion radically different from the Roman one. Armenia became the first reign in history that officially welcomed Christianity as its state religion. Since then, the Christian faith, together with the Armenian language, became the most dynamic feature of national life. The monastery of Djekert, with its remarkable rock-cut churches and tombs, is an exceptionally well-preserved and complete example of medieval Armenian monastic architecture and decorative art, with many innovatory features, which had a profound influence of subsequent developments in the region. The southern façade of the main church has the Saint Astvatsatsen portal with fine carvings. The tympanum is decorated with a representation of trees with palm grenades hanging from their branches and of leaves intertwining with grapes. The pictures of doves are placed between the arch and the outside frame. The dove's heads are turned to the axis of the portal. Above the portal is carved a lion attacking an ox, symbolizing the prince's power. In a country with an architectural tradition in stone dating back to Eurathian times, the craftsmen, who so carefully carved blocks of stones for walls, fortresses and sanctuaries, had acquired the skill to sculpt stone as relief decorations for buildings or as independent works of art. The eclectic quality of Armenian art make it both complex and diverse, encompassing ideas from the Orient and the Occident, from the classical and Byzantine world, and the vast realm of Islam. The complex is rich in subtle sculptural embellishments and many striking catchcards that cross stones. The monastery complex was encircled by a defensive wall in the 12th and 13th centuries. The main access is through a gate on the western end of the walls and there is a smaller secondary entrance in the east. To the east and south of the church, the walls have been lined on the interior with ranges of small buildings dating from the 17th century now in ruins. However, it is known that most of the monks lived in cells excavated into the rock face outside the main and saint, which have been preserved along with some simple oratories. The rock faces over the whole area bear elaborate crosses, the khachkar carved in reliefs. The cave structures brought Djekerd well-merited fame. The cave church and the family sepulchre of Samatoun Papak and Rotsokan, a hall for gatherings and studies and numerous cells. The princely tombs, or Samatoun, of Papak Eruzokana was hewn in 1288 on a second level north of the Prussian's burl vault by way of an external staircase. Also carved into the rock, its form reproduces that of a gavet. It contains the tombs of the princes Merik and Grigor and others are known to have been there but have now disappeared. An inscription shows it to have been completed in 1288. On the southern side of the corridor leading to these princely tombs, numerous crosses are cut. In the volume devoted to Djekerd's dress, that it is laid on the importance of this monastery in medieval Armenian religious architecture because of its elaborate plan and particular the exceptional rock-cut chapels and tombs. The columns hewn in solid rock support rather low semi-circular arches fitted into trapeziform frames which, forming a square in the plan, serve as a foundation for the spherical cupola above them with a light opening in its cenoth. A hole in the back right corner gives a view of the tombs downstairs. The massive freestanding columns in the center support the roof of stone. The monastery of Djekerd contains a number of churches and tombs, most of them cut into the living rock which illustrates Armenian medieval architecture at its highest point. The complex of medieval buildings is set into a landscape of great natural beauty.