TATEV MONASTERY
Tatev Monastery, home to the elegant little Church of the Holy Mother of God and the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul.
Surrounded by powerful walls, from which one has a superb panoramic view of the valley, the monastery of Tatev or Tatevivank, collapsed in 1936 following a violent earthquake. It was raised as a whole, as it had been built, in the 9th and 11th centuries. For more than a thousand years, Tatev was the spiritual centre of the Siunian Kingdom, whose prosperous period was between 987 and 1170, and for this reason it became an important place of pilgrimage. In the 11th century, the monastery, which ruled over many of the surrounding areas and housed a brilliant school, was a veritable beehive where hundreds of monks lived.
Victim of a first earthquake and plundering by the Seljuk in the 12th century, it was restored in the following century by the Orbelian, a feudal family then ruling the region; a brief rebirth before the destruction caused by the hordes of Tamerlan. But Tatev will rise again in the 17th-18th centuries, when the monastery experienced a revival, as evidenced by the convent buildings leaning against the surrounding wall, which also housed monks' cells.
It was on this wall that the elegant little church of the Holy Mother of God (Sourp Asdvadzadzine) was built in 1087, with its slender dome topped by an umbrella roof, which was restored very early on.
The centrepiece of this monastic complex is the church of Saint-Pierre-et-Saint-Paul (Sourp Boghos-Pétros), the foundations of which are said to have been laid in 895 by Bishop Yohannés with the help of the Princes of Siounie.
This large church with its sober decoration was preceded, in the 19th century, by a high three-level bell tower, abundantly sculpted like that of the cathedral of Etchmiadzine, and which is still waiting to be raised; only the first level has remained standing. The interior of the main church, entirely restored, impresses by its elevation. The high dome rests on four massive free pillars, giving its magnitude to the interior space, which is larger than most Armenian buildings. Unfortunately, only fragments of the frescoes on the walls have survived, most of which were executed by Western masters, as the historian Stéphane Orbéli tells us in an allusion to their commissioner, Bishop Hagop de Dvin (930): "He had painters of images from the Frankish nation come from afar and commissioned them at great expense to paint the vaults of the temple, God's dwelling place and source of light, to cover them entirely from bottom to top, and to execute a figure of the Saviour that was magnificent to see. »
A l'intérieur du monastère, entouré d'un mur d'enceinte et de hautes tours, on visitera les deux églises où peut-être l'on assistera à la célébration d'un mariage. Il subsiste une partie des bâtiments conventuels. Les cellules des moines très spartiates s'ouvrent sur un abîme vertigineux. On remarquera les fours enterrés de la boulangerie où l'on cuisait sur la paroi le pain lavach, pain traditionnel de l'Arménie. Chaque maison avait son four et de nos jours chaque village est doté d'un four collectif où les villageois apportent leur farine. Autre curiosité une colonne oscillante, constituée d'un monolithe de 8 m de haut surmonté d'une croix, chef d'oeuvre des ingénieurs du Moyen-Age. Elle aurait pour fonction de prévenir des tremblements de terre par son mouvement de balancement, ou à effrayer les ennemis conquérants. Elle a résisté aux séismes successifs qui ont dévasté le site.
Un lieu historique et spirituel à visiter absolument au cours d'un voyage en Arménie. Il se trouve au sud-est de l'Arménie dans la région de Goris, où l'on pourra également découvrir avec intérêt le site mégalithique de Karahounge, un observatoire astronomique comparable à Stonehenge datant du troisième millénaire avant notre ère, ainsi que le bel ensemble d'habitations troglodytes de Khndzoresk, habité jusqu'au début du XXème siècle.