SEVANAVANK MONASTERY

At 2 or 3 kilometres east of the town of Sevan, the peninsula or peninsula, with its monastery, is undoubtedly one of the most visited and photographed places on the lake. Rising on the top of a hill that was still an island at the beginning of the 20th century and accessed by a narrow strip of wooded land, two small and modest churches are all that remains of the monastery that stood here in the Middle Ages. These very rustic medieval churches, the Church of the Holy Apostles (Sourp Arakélots) and the Church of the Holy Mother of God (Sourp Asdvadzadzine), are made of large black volcanic stones, would have been built at the very beginning of the Armenian renaissance following the Arab domination, in 874, on the initiative of the theologian and Catholicos Machtots, and by the care of the Bagratid princess Mariam, wife of Vasak of Siunie, the principality of southern Armenia. The churches were originally part of a monastery of which no significant remains remain. Nor is there anything left of the fortress that made the ancient island an impregnable site. It is said that the Arab conquerors gave up their conquest of the island after their flotilla was wiped out by the violent storms that sometimes shake Lake Sevan, pouring waves of more than two metres on to its shores. The two churches are highlighted by the exceptional site, standing out on the skyline where the sky merges with the waters of the lake. Built with large black basalt stones assembled in a rustic manner, they are of a moving simplicity. The Asdvadzadzine church, the largest, was preceded by a narthex of which only a few stones remain; in the cramped interior space blackened by the soot of the candles, one notices the altar with its moving polychrome representations. The wooden columns that supported the vault have of course disappeared, but their beautifully carved capitals from ^{IXe siècle} are kept in the Yerevan Historical Museum and the Hermitage of St. JamesPétersbourg ; two wooden doors also carved from the church are on display in the Yerevan Museum. In front of these chapel-sized churches, there are several khatchkar carved from the reddest tufa.

At the foot of this hill is a seminary, nestled in the greenery, where young people from all over Armenia prepare for the priesthood. The young seminarians in cassock rub shoulders with the rather naked population of the peninsula, attracted by the many beachside cafes and restaurants.