Gndevank monastery

Gndevank Monastery is located in the canyon of the Arpa River near the village of Gndevaz Vayots Dzor region of Armenia. Gndevank was founded in the 10th century by the Syunik princess Sophia. He was destined for the ravens of the gorge and named after one of them, Supana Gnduni. It was led by the construction of the priest Egishe, a famous artist of that time. The church of the Gnedevank Surb Stepanos monastery, built in 931-936 from a clean basalt, belongs to the type of cross-domed structures. The walls of the church from the inside are decorated with frescoes, one of the fragments of which with the image of Christ preserved to this day. On the inner side of the dome are carved high reliefs depicting the symbols of the four evangelists. In 999, to the western wall of the church, the parish priest, Christopher, was built, one of the oldest structures of this type, preserved to this day. In 1604, the Persian Shah Abbas destroyed the monastery. Only in 1691, Gdevank was rebuilt on the initiative of the abbot of the monastery of the Vardapet Petros. He surrounded the monastery with high walls, along which he built residential and household premises. According to one of the versions, it was during this period that a depicting Our Lady of the fresco was painted on one of the walls of the northern side-altar, which is one of the masterpieces of the Armenian fine arts of the late Middle Ages. The khachkars (stone crucifixes) and tombstones located on the territory of the monastery date back to the 10th-14th centuries. From 1965s to the 1970s in the monastery were carried out restoration work.