Aprank Monastery: An Armenian Apostolic Monastic Complex in Türkiye
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.4
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Turkey
- Primary era
- Modern
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Modern
- Civilizations
- Armenian, Ottoman
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Monastery
On this page16 sections
History
Aprank Monastery, also known as Abrenk or Saint David’s Monastery, was a former Armenian Apostolic monastery in Türkiye near Üçpınar in Erzincan Province. Its foundation date is unknown, although tradition attributes a martyrium there in the early fourth century to Gregory the Illuminator, the missionary traditionally credited with converting Armenia to Christianity and becoming its first chief bishop. The monastery was certainly in existence by 1488, when it was recorded as Saint Gregory’s Monastery.
Early Names and Medieval Tradition
The institution was also called Tsakkari, a name meaning “stone hole” and derived from a nearby village and the site’s position beside a quarry opening to the west. It later became known as Saint David’s after David of Dvin, a seventh-century Armenian saint associated with the city of Dvin. The name was especially connected with the upper chapel, which probably preserved relics attributed to David. Historical tradition, however, places David’s burial at Dvin, so the monastery’s association with him may have concerned relics rather than his burial.
Vardapet Malachia of Derjan, an Armenian cleric traditionally associated with advanced religious learning and teaching, renovated the upper chapel between 1521 and 1535. By the late seventeenth century, Aprank had become the seat of the local archbishop. It retained that role into the nineteenth century, when it served as the episcopal center of Derjan and exercised jurisdiction over 34 Armenian villages.
Nineteenth-Century Expansion
During the middle of the nineteenth century, the abbot Mgrditch Ardzrunian and the monk-architect Eprem carried out extensive renovations. They built the Church of the Holy Precursor, also known as Saint John’s Church or Saint John the Baptist’s Church, and added a new enclosure wall and other structures. Most of the buildings that survive belong to this period, reflecting Aprank’s continuing role as an ecclesiastical and administrative center.
The monastery owned land and woods and operated a school by the beginning of the twentieth century. In 1902, its holdings included fields, a garden, and a large orchard, while an earlier account also mentions a forest. A visit in 1903 found that the monastic community had largely withdrawn. Only the abbot remained at Saint John’s Church, while Saint David’s was deserted.
Pilgrimage and Abandonment
Aprank served as a pilgrimage site for Armenians and Kurds from Dersim. Its annual feast traditionally followed the autumn harvest, when pilgrims gathered at the complex. An Armenian priest and a Kurdish sayyid or pir, religious titles whose meanings vary by region and institution, blessed the salt used in sacrificial offerings. Kurdish religious figures known as reypers, sayyids, or pirs also took part in the practice, giving the pilgrimage a shared local religious setting.
The complex was abandoned during the Armenian Genocide of 1915 or shortly afterward. It subsequently entered a period of neglect and now survives in a derelict and partly ruined condition. A Research on Armenian Architecture team assessed it in 1974 and found it in comparatively good condition, a state attributed at least partly to the attentiveness of nearby residents.
Its condition worsened in the following decades. By the early 1990s, an inscription above the church entrance had been destroyed, and the monastery was reportedly dynamited in 1990 on the pretext that Kurdish guerrillas were using it as a shelter. Treasure hunters dug through the church walls and floors, and an eagle relief formerly inside the church had disappeared by 2019. The upper chapel of Saint David deteriorated substantially after the 1980s. Turkish signage and government-approved visitor information also do not identify the complex’s Armenian character.
Aprank’s khachkars have acquired a memorial role beyond the monastery itself. Khachkars are Armenian carved cross-stones, usually commemorative or funerary monuments that combine a cross with geometric and vegetal ornament. Replicas of the two largest stones were erected near Etchmiadzin Cathedral in 2015 in memory of the victims of the Armenian Genocide. Carved by Lyudvig Ghazaryan, they were inaugurated by Catholicos Karekin II on 28 September 2015. Another replica, based on the 2.4-meter khachkar associated with Grigor, was erected in Yerevan in 2017.
Remains
Aprank stands at approximately 1,700 meters above sea level on the western slope of Köbek-Dağ, about 2 kilometers south of Üçpınar. The complex is divided between a lower walled monastery and an upper chapel on a hill approximately 100 meters away. The lower enclosure measures about 67.8 by 33.5 meters, while the upper area contains the Chapel of Saint David, a graveyard, and groups of carved cross-stones. The surviving buildings combine later nineteenth-century construction with reused masonry and earlier inscribed stones.
Lower Monastery Enclosure
Walls and Grounds
The lower monastery is surrounded by thick, tall walls whose scale gave the complex a powerful visual presence and expressed its importance. The enclosure could be observed from nearby elevated ground. Its gates were placed in the northern part, and buildings formerly attached to the walls also occupied the northern section. Mulberry trees once lined the western side, while remains of structures with large arched barrel vaults survive outside the enclosure. The eastern, southern, and western walls and several auxiliary buildings have substantially collapsed, and masonry was removed from the middle section of the western wall.
Church of the Holy Precursor
The Church of the Holy Precursor was built between 1851 and 1873 on the site of an earlier church. It is a cruciform building measuring approximately 17 by 12.2 meters, with four free-standing columns, a low drum, and a flattened dome. Its plan follows the tradition of post-Byzantine Greek churches, whose architecture developed in the Greek Orthodox tradition after the Byzantine period. The church has a single western entrance and remains standing despite substantial damage.
Inside, the church was originally plastered and paved with large stone slabs. Its interior is divided into a nave and two aisles, each ending in an apse, a rounded or semicircular sanctuary end. A small barrel-vaulted martyrium adjoins the south wall and can be entered only from within the church. The tomb of the church’s builder has disappeared. A decorated stone panel once filled the triangular tympanum above the entrance, carrying cross motifs and two inscriptions, one dated 1854. The panel was still visible in 1988 but had been destroyed by the early 1990s.
Ecclesiastical and Residential Buildings
The enclosure contained the prelacy building, residences, and other monastic structures. A prelacy is the administrative office or residence of a prelate, and these buildings supported Aprank’s function as the center of the local episcopal administration. Their surviving remains form part of the damaged group of structures around the main church.
Upper Chapel and Cemetery
Chapel of Saint David
The Chapel of Saint David is a single-nave rectangular building with an interior barrel vault and an exterior saddle roof. Its walls reuse older masonry, including fragments of inscriptions. An inscription above the entrance identifies the building as David’s tomb, although the identity and burial place of the David commemorated there remain uncertain. The chapel is now substantially deteriorated, preserving only a damaged form of the structure associated with the monastery’s later dedication to Saint David.
Graveyard and Inscribed Stones
An enclosed graveyard lies east of the upper chapel. It contains a large khachkar decorated with a bird motif, while fragments of other khachkars lie nearby. The graveyard formed part of a larger monastery cemetery that included inscribed tombstones. Near the chapel, at the northwestern corner of the forecourt, stands a 2.4-meter khachkar associated with a man named Grigor. Its inscription identifies it as his tombstone and dates its erection to the Armenian year corresponding to 1171/72. A replica of this stone was erected in Yerevan in 2017.
Monumental Khachkars
The Two Large Cross-Stones
A group of khachkars stands northeast of the upper chapel. Three remain in their original foundations on a small elevation and are largely undamaged, although weathered. Two of them measure approximately 4.7 and 4.9 meters high. They have been described as the tallest surviving khachkars in the world and the largest surviving examples in Türkiye. Their elevated position makes them visible from approximately 8 kilometers away.
The 4.7-meter khachkar carries an inscription corresponding to 1194/95, including a chronology of Muslim sultans incorporated into prayers. The date of the 4.9-meter stone is no longer legible, although its script suggests a twelfth- or thirteenth-century date. An Arabic inscription on its narrow right side includes the date 903, but it is uncertain whether this refers to the Armenian or Islamic calendar, corresponding to either 1454 or 1525.
Design and Later Interpretations
The two monumental stones share a carefully organized design. A lower panel carries an inscription, above which intricate interlaced patterns form a stepped pyramid. The upper section presents a cross shaped as a tree of life. Disk motifs appear beneath the richly decorated crosses, while continuous braided patterns frame the edges. These features make the stones distinct examples of Armenian cross-stone carving.
Smaller Khachkars
A third khachkar, approximately 2 meters high, once stood beside the two large stones until the 1970s and is now toppled. Script analysis assigns its weathered inscription to the fourteenth or fifteenth century. Father Eprem added an inscription to its back in 1877, proposing that the stones had been erected in the year corresponding to 1234/35. A fourth khachkar may once have occupied a hole cut into the rock, although it may never have been erected.
Replicas of the two largest Aprank khachkars now stand near Etchmiadzin Cathedral. They are approximately 6 or 7 meters high and weigh about 12 or 14 tonnes, making them larger than the original stones they reproduce. Their memorial purpose connects the artistic remains of Aprank with remembrance of the Armenian Genocide.
