Armenian Monastic Ensembles of Iran
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How it came to be
Three Armenian monastic ensembles survive in north-western Iran, on the south-eastern edge of the Armenian cultural area. The Monastery of St Thaddeus near Maku, also called the Black Church, is recorded from the 7th century. It is held to be the burial place of the apostle Thaddeus and is still a pilgrimage site of the Armenian Church.
The Monastery of St Stepanos, 17 km west of Jolfa in the gorge of the Araxes, was first founded in 649. An earthquake in 1319 destroyed St Thaddeus, and in the 1320s Bishop Zachariah rebuilt both monasteries. The present buildings date from 1814 at St Thaddeus and from 1819 to 1825 at St Stepanos.
The Chapel of Dzordzor was built by Bishop Zachariah in 1314. When a planned dam threatened to submerge it, the chapel was taken apart with numbered stones and rebuilt about 600 m away. The move was finished in 1987 and 1988, and only about 250 of its roughly 1,500 stones are new. The three were inscribed in 2008.
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