XII - XIII AD - Goghtn Region, Nakhichevan (Azerbaijan)

"St. Stepanos Church - General View" © 2000 Raffi Kojian, All Rights Reserved

In Verin Get district of Agulis, on the mountain slope built this church is the only standing construction among the ruins of 100 of surrounding houses. There is little information left in written sources about St. Stepanos' past. During period of time have disappeared and were harmed also the church- complex' lythographs and picture- carvings.

The architectural and archeological materials of the monument evidence that its former construction was built still in XII- XIIIcc and was repaired in XVIIc. In the beginning of XXc repaired St.STepanos is presently in half-ramshackle condition. (p 22-24, 26). St. STepanos church was built from clearly- trimmed basalt and reddish stone, has a four-pillar domed, cruciform- cover basiliaca composition (graph 2). In the eastern part of the church, in the two sides of the senior vestry there are rather large and half-rounded vestries, the western fronts of which like the senior vestry are wholly open and are directly connected with the praying-hall. Those vestries under them have underground- sacristies, the entries of which are open in the stage of vestries and go down by ladders. On the square four cruciform- cut pillars of the church is placed a beautiful dome.

St. Stepanos church has three entries in western, northern and southern fronts, which are outlined with fine and stylish carving- ornaments. Once under the arches of those entries were put plot high- reliefs, 1 in each, which are presently taken out and have disappeared. In front of the southern entry of the church the two- pillar- composition chapel was fully destroyed in 1940. The comunal constructions inside the square rampart of the monument are also fully ruined in present.

[Source: Agulis -by Argam Aivazian, 1984, Hayastan Press, Yerevan]

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