Sevanavank Monastery
Sevanavank stands on high ground on the peninsula northeast of the town of Sevan. Medieval writers described an island. In the twentieth century, the falling level of Lake Sevan exposed a strip of land that joined the island to the shore. The walk to the monastery today crosses ground that once lay under water.
Tradition associates the early Christian history of the island with Gregory the Illuminator. The surviving churches have a more definite date. In 874 Princess Mariam, daughter of Ashot Bagratuni, sponsored the Churches of the Holy Apostles and the Holy Mother of God. Mashtots, who later became Catholicos of Armenia, then led the community. A building inscription on the east face of the drum of the Holy Apostles is among the important records of this period.
Both churches are small cruciform structures with a central dome. Their projecting arms make the interior plan legible from outside. The masonry also repays a closer look: roughly worked blocks form much of the walling, while the builders reserved more finely dressed stone for arches, drums and the edges of openings.
The smaller Church of the Holy Apostles stands on a two-tier base. Three arms of its cross-shaped interior end in rounded recesses, and a small sacristy occupies the northeast corner. Above the east window a mason carved an eight-pointed rosette around an equal-armed cross. Another inscription on the drum records repairs in 1651 and calls the church Surb Karapet, the Holy Forerunner.
About ten metres to the northeast, the Church of the Mother of God repeats the plan on a larger scale. Here the arches supporting the dome are doubled. Pendentives, curved triangular surfaces, carry the transition from the square below to the dome above. They required particularly precise stonecutting. A cross on the north face of the drum is one of very few pieces of exterior ornament.
Two domes define the skyline today. The ruins of a third church, the Holy Resurrection, still preserve the outline of the eastern sanctuary and its side rooms. West of the Church of the Mother of God stood a gavit, or assembly hall, with wooden columns. Two of its carved capitals are in the History Museum of Armenia. They allow an unusually close look at medieval woodwork, a material that rarely survives outdoors.
The same museum holds the walnut door carved in 1486 for the Church of the Holy Apostles. Christ enthroned occupies the upper register, and geometric and plant ornament frame the figures. A different work survives at the monastery itself. The 1653 All-Saviour cross-stone once stood in the lakeside village of Norashen. Its inscription identifies its carver as Trdat.