HAGHARTSIN MONASTERY

Leaving Dilidjan, turning left on the road to Idjevan, one follows the course of the Haghartsine, a torrent that flows into the Aghtsev. The road meanders through the undergrowth where you occasionally come across half-wild cattle or pigs, and suddenly, under the foliage of tall beech trees, the conical roofs of the Haghartsin Monastery appear. Situated on a grassy plateau surrounded by the peaks of the Gougark (3,016 m), itself overlooking the torrent, this monastery with its white stone walls consists of three churches, a narthex (jamatoun), a chapel and a refectory at the entrance to the complex.
The complex was built around the Church of St Gregory (Sourp Grigor), restored in 1184 and enlarged in 1194 with a chapel known as Katoghike, under the direction of the superior and learned Khatchatur Taronatsi and on the orders of the Georgian King George III and his vassals, the Armenian Zakarid princes.
It is said that it was Ivané who rebuilt the imposing jamatoun of the Church of St Gregory, just after the death in 1213 of his brother Zakaré, founder of the Zakarid dynasty. After a Mongolian invasion, the small church of Sourp Stepanos (Saint Stephen) was added in 1244, the refectory in 1248, and the church of the Mother of God (Asdvadzadzine) in 1281. Note the decorative elements of the vast narthex, the sundial and the eagles sculpted on the main church, whose donors are depicted at the top of the chevet.

The refectory, a rare testimony of Armenian civil architecture, is a long building built by the architect Minas, with two windows and a door decorated with a tympanum. The interior space is divided into two compartments separated by two stocky pillars and lit by two small domes, the vaults are supported by two pairs of crossed arches and decorated with stalactites, the only decoration of this long room where the monks took their meals. Next to the refectory, an antique bread oven reminds us that the monastic rule required the mastery of domestic tasks. It is now in use again, as the peasant women offer for sale to tourists the breads that have come out of the oven, as well as "gata", these soft flour and sugar cakes.

Armenians sometimes come from far away to have their children baptized in the main church. A place of worship, Haghartsin is also a place for walks and picnics. On a flat area, behind the green wooden chalet where the priest and his family live, from where there is a superb view of the monastery, a small path leads down to the bed of the waterfall