The Arkelan monastery (the “Cloister”) lies at 38° 58’ N and 43° 42’ E on the eastern slope of Mount Dzaghgaler [Aksorik Dağ, Akçadağ], a short distance from the northeastern tip of Lake Van and west of the town of Pergri [Muradiye], in the Armenian canton of Daperunik‘. The monastery is composed of an upper convent, built at an altitude of 2,100 m, and a lower convent, located halfway up a rocky barrier at an altitude of 1,950 m.
The monastery was most certainly founded in the 11th-12th centuries and at that time consisted of only the upper convent. In the 13th century, the holy monk, Stephen (Sdep‘annos), son of the priest Hussig and a mother ransomed from her captors, who would soon find a place in the Armenian book of saints, was responsible for the fame of this monastic community; upon Stephen’s death, a funeral chapel, destined to become a pilgrimage site, was built in front of his oratory, below the monastery on a shelf in the cliff. From then on, Arkelan became known by the name of Saint Stephen, “son of Hussig” (Husgan Ortwo Surp Sdep‘annos). This dedication is attested as early as 1291, along with that of Mother of God and the Holy Sign. The name of the Holy Sign, repeatedly invoked until the end of the 15th century, designated a fragment of the Cross, the Holy Sign of the Red Gem (Garmir Agn Surp Nëshan), kept in a reliquary adorned with precious stones. This relic would soon give its name to another monastery of Vasbouragan, the Hermit’s Desert or the Convent of the Red Gem, located south of Lake Van (n° 18).
L’église de la Sainte-Mère de Dieu, vue nord-est (Thierry, 1989, pl. XIV-4).
Arkelan was a renowned monastery, governed jointly by its priors and the bishops of Pergri. It is regularly mentioned in the texts from the end of the 13th century until the 17th century as an important scriptorium. The prior Nersès restored its church in the 1440s. In 1460, Catholicos Zacharia III of Aght‘amar (1434-1464), who had just merged his seat with that of the recently re-established seat of Edchmiadzin, made a triumphal halt at the monastery. The scriptorium was particularly active at the time of the prior Baptist (Mgrditsh, † after 1498) and his successor Stephen (Sdep‘annos), when Arkelan was a large community. In the second half of the 16th century, two poet monks, one of whom was the prior Elijah (Eghia), are known to have lived there. Later, under the patriarch Philip I (P‘ilibbos, 1633-1655) at Edchmiadzin, a new church was added to Stephen’s funeral chapel, perhaps on the site of an earlier edifice; this church is believed to have been renovated in 1700 by archbishop Sergius of Gop‘ (Sarkis Gop‘etsi), but it is also possible that this intervention concerned the upper convent church. At the end of the 19th century, the lower convent had supplanted the upper site, and Father Gabriel (Kapriel) was prior of Arkelan. After Father Gabriel, management of the monastery and its assets was entrusted to a secular priest. Unlike many Armenian convents, Arkelan was not attacked during the 1895-1896 massacres, in which the Kurdish bey, Mehmed, the then assistant prefect of Pergri, abstained from participating. In April 1915, the vicinity of the monastery served as a temporary refuge for the inhabitants of several nearby villages, who were subsequently executed on the Pergri River bridge.
Upper convent, plan (Thierry, 1989, 191)
The upper convent of the monastery holds the church of the Holy Mother of God, a cross-in-square plan built in the 11th-12th centuries measuring 9.3 × 5.9 m, with a drum coiffed by a cone-shaped cupola, absidioles surmounted by lateral chambers and niches under arches; monastic buildings; and below the church to the south, a cemetery. The lower convent included the church of the “son of Hussig” (Husgan Orti), a single nave with a drum and cupola, measuring 11.5 × 7 m, constructed in the 17th century; its western wing contained niches under arches; abutting the north wall of the church and connected by the north niche of the nave is Saint Stephen’s funeral chapel, 5 m in length; an enfeu, or depository for the dead, in the east wall housed the saint’s tomb.
Lower convent, plan of the church and the Saint Stephen chapel (Thierry, 1989, 191)
The Arkelan monastery was confiscated after the Great War and left empty. In the 1970s, the upper convent church was still standing, although the southwest corner had begun to collapse and had already lost some of its covering slabs. In 2012 all that remained standing was part of the apse and a length of the north wall. The monastic buildings have disappeared and the cemetery has been desecrated. The lower convent church has lost the covering slabs of its pyramid; the west side is open, the nave having collapsed, and so is the east side, where the apse contains a hole midway up the wall. The inside has been excavated. the Saint Stephen funeral chapel is reduced to ruined walls.
Bas Couvent, l’église d’Housgan Orti, vue sud-ouest, 2007 (Coll. privée).
Mémoire, 1919, 67-84. Oskian, 1940-1947, I, 357-378. Thierry, 1989, 188-194.