Church of Saint Gregory the Illuminator at Noratus (Daputs Monastery)
Saint Gregory the Illuminator is also known as Daputs Monastery. Official lists use the variant Dopunts. Catholicos Simeon of Yerevan described it as a convent. That reference is important to the history of the community. The name “monastery” has endured, while the church is its principal standing building today.
Dates in the literature can refer to different stages of the building. One interpretation identifies an early single-nave church with a vaulted roof, later adapted into a domed hall. Scholars compare the masonry with inscriptions on the walls. Some of this evidence points to a building earlier than the often-cited thirteenth century. An inscription on the western wall names Prince Herakl Havnuni.
The Church of the Mother of God in the village centre, traditionally associated with Prince Sahak, is a separate church. Daputs stands on the southern edge, near the famous cemetery with its carved cross-stones. Stones in this area preserve evidence of building work as well as the ways local families commemorated their dead. Daputs was transferred to the Armenian Apostolic Church in 1997 and underwent restoration in 2007.