Church > The Church of the Holy Virgin in the Village of Aknaghbyur

The Church of the Holy Virgin in the Village of Aknaghbyur

Location

The Church of the Holy Virgin is located in the center of the village of Aknaghbyur (previously Gharabulagh) of the region of Askeran in the Artsakh Republic. The village in now under Azerbaijani occupation.

Historical Overview

There is no historical information about the church. Describing Gharabulagh, Makar Barkhudariants notes: “The Church of the Holy Virgin, made from limestone, is in danger…” (Barkhudariants 1895, 95). In his voluminous work Shahen Mkrtchian only mentions this church (Mkrtchian 1985, 207).

Architectural-Compositional Description

The church is a three-nave building with a rectangular plan. It has a wooden ceiling, a little part of which has been preserved, that rested on stone wall columns and the central wooden column, just like the churches of the 19th century of the Ararat Valley. Taking into consideration this circumstance and the architectural solution of the southern entrance, one can suppose that the church was built at the end of the 18th century or the beginning of the 19th century. It is built with the local white limestone (fig. 1). The walls are built with hewn and semi-hewn big and small stones. The entrances and their lintels, the corners of the church, as well as small windows are also made from hewn stones. The church had two entrances at the west and the south. Later the western one was closed and transformed into a window. On the eastern side the church has three windows (fig. 2).

Fig. 1 The general view of the church from the west, photo from the Certificate of the Ministry of ESCS of the AR.

The old cemetery of the village is surrounding the church (fig. 3, 4), with its grave-stones of mainly 18th-20th centuries (Ghahramanian 2015, 30).

The State of the Church before and after the War

The church was not damaged during the Artsakh war. Before the war of 2020 it was already in a badly wrecked state. The walls have great fissures and crumbled parts. During the Soviet years the partly damaged church was reconstructed and used for practical needs. The western entrance was closed and transformed into a big window, while the demolished cupola was replaced by a roof which rests in the center on wooden columns, simply erected on the pavement (fig. 5).

After the war of 2020 and the occupation of the village, there is no information about the church.

 

Fig. 4 General view of the church and the cemetery from the north, photo from the Certificate of the Ministry of ESCS of the AR.

Fig. 2 The eastern front of the church, photo from the Certificate of the Ministry of ESCS of the AR.

Fig. 3 Grave-stones with inscriptions near the church, photo from the Certificate of the Ministry of ESCS of the AR.

Fig. 5 The interior of the church, photo from the Certificate of the Ministry of ESCS of the AR.

 Bibliograpy

  1. Barkhudariants 1895 - Barkhudariants M. Artsakh, Baku.
  2. Ghahramanian 2015 - Ghahramanian H., Directory of socio-economic characteristics of the administrative-territorial units of the Artsakh Republic. Yerevan, Jartaraget.
  3. Mkrtchian 1985 - Historical and Architectural Monuments of Nagorno Karabakh, Yerevan.
The Church of the Holy Virgin in the Village of Aknaghbyur
The Church of the Holy Virgin in the Village of Aknaghbyur
The Church of the Holy Virgin in the Village of Aknaghbyur
Artsakh