Dadivank

The first name is associated with the name of St. Dadi , who preached Christianity in the west of Armenia and was a disciple of the Apostle Thaddeus - one of the seventy disciples of Christ . According to legend, the monastery was built over his grave ^{[6] [7]} .

The second name comes from the Armenian “Hut” (hill) and “Vank” (monastery): “monastery on a hill”.

The first sanctuary on the grave of the deceased in the 1st century AD e. St. Dadi was built in the early Middle Ages.

The first mention of the monastery dates back to the 9th century .

In the first half of the XIII century, the monastery buildings, destroyed to the foundation by the Seljuks , were restored, new buildings appeared. This time is considered the heyday of the monastery. In 1214 Arzuhatun Artsruni , the wife of Vakhtang Tagavorazn , erected a cathedral church of the monastery, the first half century also dates to the vestibule chapel of Bishop Grigor ^[7] .

Until the end of the XVIII century, the monastery was a major cultural and religious center, served by its large village of Khut.

Since the XVII century, the monastery begins to lose its land, the population of dozens of neighboring villages, including those belonging to the monastery, was forcibly resettled in Persia . At the end of the 18th century, 300 families left Hut and moved to Erivan province. ^[7]

In the XIX century the monastery was completely empty. Archbishop Sargis Dzhalalyants , who visited the monastery in the middle of the century, described the ruins that “served as a shelter for robbers who raided Artsakh ” (at the end of the 18th century, at the invitation of Ibrahim Khan, Kurds and ayrums settled in the monastery ^[5] ). Ancient sanctuaries were turned into pastures "for flocks of sheep and cattle." In front of the cellars and rooms are abandoned vast gardens, where still running wild fruit trees continue to grow. At the end of the same century, Ararat magazine wrote ^[7] :

The Tadeya Monastery with its structures is similar to the rich quarter of a populous city, to which only the presence of people gives breath and life.

After the accession of Eastern Armenia to Russia, in the 1830s, Metropolitan Baghdasar Hasan-Jalalyan began the movement to return the monastery to the church, later supported by the Catholicos of All Armenians Nerses V and the new rector of the monastery Priest Astvatsatur. In the early 1910s, a resident of Tiflis, Levon Mikaelovich Ter-Avetikyan, was appointed manager of the monastery estates, who, having collected the necessary documents, went to court. Contrary to the positive court ruling for the monastery, the nomads for a long time did not want to leave their lands. However, by 1917, Ter-Avetikyan managed to secure the transfer of numerous pastures to the monastery ^[5] .

With the establishment of Soviet power, all monastic possessions were nationalized, and Dadivank was transferred to the subordination of the Azerbaijani authorities and again depopulated ^[5] . In 1924 , Smbat Ter-Avetisyan, who visited the monastery, noted that the local nomads turned the temple into a pen for cattle and mercilessly spoil it with treasure hunting ^[3] .

Soon after the transfer of control over the monastery to the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic in March 1993, restoration work began at the expense of the Armenian Apostolic Church and the state. Work is still ongoing ^[5] .

In 1994 , Dadivank was consecrated again and is currently a functioning monastery of the Artsakh diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church .

On July 21, 2007, excavations were carried out in Dadivanka, as a result of which the relics of St. Dadi were discovered under a stele near the altar ^{[8] [9]} . According to the leader of the Artsakh Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Archbishop Pargev Srbazan, the find has a common Christian significance, is the greatest event for Christians around the world ^[9]

The complex consists of the main church of the Holy Virgin and other churches, a vestibule chapel, a bell tower and other utility rooms. The main premises of the monastery are fenced with a stone wall, utility buildings are located in the southern part of the complex. Due to its variety of building motifs of secular and church architecture, amazingly fine stone carvings, fresco paintings, rich inscriptions and finest stone carvings, the monastery occupies an exceptional position and is recognized as one of the most striking artistic monuments of Armenian feudal architecture ^[3] .

Old Church

The ancient church of the monastery is located in its northeastern part. It is a rectangular in plan one-nave basilica . It has two entrances: from the west and southeast, the platbands of the entrances are covered with ornaments. The now absent vault of the church relied on three pairs of pilasters . ^[7] .

Small Basilica

Another basilica adjoins the first church from the south - also an ancient one, but much smaller. The prayer hall of the church is divided into two equal parts by the wall. The eastern part is a rectangular room without niches and indentations; it seems to have served as a narthex . In the western half are three pairs of pilasters . Having examined the laying of the church, Shagen Mkrtchyan came to the conclusion that “the church was restored, but it was done so carefully that the original appearance of the structure remained unchanged” ^[7] .

Arzu Hatun Cathedral Church

The Cathedral Church of Arzu-Khatun is located in the eastern part of the monastery courtyard. From the main gate to the church from west to east there is a long corridor ("avenue") of religious and secular buildings ^[7] .

The cathedral was founded in 1214 by the wife of Grand Duke Atherk Vakhtang - Arzuhatun. A long inscription of 19 lines tells in detail about Arzu-Khatun and its founding of the church: ^[7]

Interior

The church is a domed hall with a cruciform inside and a rectangular plan outside.

In all four corners of the church are two-story sacristy. The sacristy located on the second floor can be reached via cantilevered stairs.

Pilasters and arches are built of white and gray stone, covered with ornaments. The inside walls were covered with stucco with luxurious frescoes, which is preserved only in places. The surviving fragments trace the traditional features of Armenian fresco painting: rich colors, simple painting style, love of ornamentation, faces with pronounced oriental features. According to Shagen Mkrtchyan, the quality of the frescoes testifies to the talent of the Artsakh artists of that time, who knew “both the technique of wall painting and the art of illustrating manuscripts” ^[7] .

Exterior

The cathedral is the compositional center of the entire ensemble. The only entrance of the church is on the western side, facing the main gate of the monastery ^[7] .

The eastern façade of the church is decorated with arkatura of three decorative arches. Is the widest and highest arch in the middle? it contains a narrow window opening with a completion in the form of a decorative pilaster. Above the window there are bas-reliefs of the ktitor , the area below the window is covered with inscriptions. Two triangular niches on both sides of the middle arch mark the altar. The semicircular edge of the niches is covered with ornament ^[7] .

The southern facade is solved in a similar way. However, unlike the eastern side, two figures presented in full growth on the composition with the cottors hold the model of the church. The area above the arch is occupied by a building inscription and various donation inscriptions with or without specific dates ^[7] .

The northern wall is made in a manner uncharacteristic of Armenian monuments: it contains a deaf decorative portal. According to Shagen Mkrtchyan, “the ornaments of this portal and especially the arches bordering the entrance are made with such grace that they leave an impression of jewelry filigree” ^[7] .

The church drum with half columns and arches resting on them is divided into 16 high and wide faces, alternately either triangular niches with arches, or narrow windows. The roof of the dome is fan-shaped, each face on the drum corresponds to a face on the roof. A roof made of carefully hewn and tightly fitted plates of dark gray color in combination with light pink edges of the drum and dark gray half-columns, arches and the frieze of the drum creates a strong contrast of chiaroscuro. Due to this effect, the volume and fragmentation of the dome are striking even from afar, due to which this dome favorably separates from similar ones. ^[7]

Narthex of the Cathedral Church

The narthex of the cathedral church is an elongated hall adjacent to the church from the west. The south wall of the hall is an arcade . The hall is covered with a gable roof, the arch of which rests on the one hand on the southern wall of the small basilica, and on the other - on the arcade. The center of the interior is the richly ornamented portal of the cathedral church, besides which the doors of the small basilica go out into the hall.

On the walls of the narthex there are three inscriptions, two of which are badly damaged. The third inscription is construction, but the date on it was erased back in Soviet times. Due to the fact that before this inscription was rewritten by Shagen Mkrtchyan, it is known that the hall was built in 1241 by Smbat ^[7] .

Hassan the Great Church

Hassan the Great Church is located south of the colonnade, is a small central dome structure. An interesting detail is that a brick was used in the masonry of the church (a dome is made of it), which is uncharacteristic for these places ^[10] . For some time, the dome of the church was in ruined condition, it was later restored in the postwar years ^[7] .

Within the walls you can find small cross stones with dedicatory inscriptions, the earliest of which is carved on a cross stone located in the wall near the left niche from the inside, and dates from the summer of 1182 .

Bishop Grigor's Chapel

The vestibule chapel of Bishop Grigor was built during the heyday of the monastery in the 13th century . It adjoins the ancient basilica from the west. The dome of the building has a light hole (yardik), supported by four columns in the center of the hall. The building has a single entrance on the left side of the south wall. The entrance portal is ornamented, to the left of it there is a building inscription indicating that it was built in 1224 by Bishop Grigor ^[7] .

The building is made of uncut stone, lined with hewn blocks from the inside. Inside the walls there are a large number of plug-in khachkars with dedicatory inscriptions. In the central part of the eastern wall there are nine such cross stones laid out in a row ^[7] .

The narthex floor is covered with tombstones: for many centuries it served as the family tomb of the princely house of Upper Khachen . Some of the inscriptions on the plates have faded over time ^[7] .

Belfry

The bell tower is located in the western part of the monastery, adjoins the eastern wall to the narthex of the Arzu-Khatun church. The entrance to the first floor is located in the western wall directly opposite the gates of the monastery. The bell tower was built in the middle of the 13th century by Bishop Sargis, the son of Prince Wahram from the Dopianz clan.

The bell tower is a two-story building. On the ground floor opposite the entrance there are two miraculous cross stones measuring 3.05 × 1.00 m. The second floor of the bell tower is a rotunda of four columns, under the dome of which bells were hung.

Khachkars deserve special attention, which some researchers are inclined to consider as one of the most beautiful Armenian khachkars ^[7] .

Refectory

To the southeast and southwest of the Hassan the Great Church are many secular buildings. Among them, the feast hall (խրախճանաց դահլիճ) stands out, which is of particular interest in its architecture. It was built by the same Bishop Grigor, as the inscription indicates, in the summer of 660 (1211).

This large hall is built like ordinary church narthexes. At the same time, it is in tune with a more ancient model of architecture - a folk dwelling2. Its walls are outside made of roughly hewn, inside - of hewn stones. A wealth of shapes and decorative details stand out, in particular, tetrahedral bases and column capitals, as well as the overlapping of the central part and a stone bench along the northern wall. In the eastern part there are five different rooms.

On the same slope, west of the refectory, there are four more structures. Their decoration is rather modest. Subsequently, living quarters with open galleries were built on these structures.

Other buildings

In different parts of the southwestern “quarter” of the monastery there are hotels, workshops, a book depository, an oil press, grape presses, monastic cells and other buildings. Around them are visible traces of ancient structures.

On the surrounding hills, outside the ramparts, the remains of three chapels are preserved.

The entire area south of the monastery right up to Tartarus was once occupied by the monastery gardens, most of which are now fused with the forest.

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  View of the upper part of the Dadivank monastery. year 2009

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  Khachkars Dadivanka

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• Rachya Arzumanyan. Бастион духа. (inaccessible link)
• Елена Шуваева-Петросян. Загадка фресок монастыря Дадиванк.