The Holy Illuminator monastery of Mudurga is situated east of Garin / Erzurum, on the other side of the hills bordering the Gaydzagi Tzor [***] Valley at 39° 57’ N et 41° 19’ E; it is build on a promontory overlooking the Gogotchan [***] gorge and falls, and, to the east, the village of Mudurga [Müdürge, Çayırtepe].
If tradition holds this monastery to have been founded many centuries ago, it is mentioned more particularly as a scriptorium in the 16th and throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. Renovated in the 1650s by the Church Doctor, Sergius of Constantinople (Sarkis Sdamboltsi), and the bishop, Lazarus (Ghazar), until the mid 19th century it was the residence of the primates of Garin / Erzurum, who also resided intermittently at the Red Convent of Hintzk‘ (n° 37). The monastery owes its name to a tradition which tells that, at the turn of the 4th century, Saint Gregory the Illuminator, while on his way to the prison of the Pit or the Deep Well (Khor Virab) at Artaxata (Ardashad), had first stopped in these places, where he had been kept in a first Well; a chapel was later erected over this pit. The well is in reality encompassed within the main monastery church, built in the middle of a vast courtyard. Damaged by the 1859 earthquake, the church was rebuilt in 1861 by Archbishop Harutiun Vehabedian and renovated in 1898. Against the right-hand wall of the church stands the anepigraphic tomb of Catholicos Sahag Ahakin of Këghi [Kiği], who, having refused to be anointed, first established himself in Constantinople, and then for nearly five years in Garin / Erzurum, residing sometimes at the Red Convent of Hintzk‘ and sometimes at the Holy Illuminator monastery, where he died in 1763. Against the south wall of the courtyard stands the little church of Saint Sergius, built in 1161. It was restored in 1720 by the superior, Khachadur of Constantinople. A fountain and a pool were built in 1734 in the courtyard, which also held a sheepfold and a barn. The last superior of the monastery was Father Nerses Der Sarkissian, martyred in 1915.
Le monastère Saint-Illuminateur, cour d’entrée (N. Dolens, Le tour du monde, 1906, 521).
The Holy Illuminator monastery of Mudurga included the church of the Holy Illuminator, a cross-in-square building surmounted by a dome, the sacristy of which extended to the north over the Illuminator’s pit; a big courtyard wall against three sides of which and were constructed two courses of outbuildings divided into some sixty dwellings for the monks and pilgrims; the church of Saint Sergius, built against the south wall of the courtyard, the east part of which was covered with a barrel vault; a fountain and pool built in the courtyard. In 1913 a fire damaged some artworks kept in the main church. Others were kept in Saint Sergius, in particular three paintings: two compositions devoted to the Holy Virgin, dated 1691 and probably 1769, and one representing Saint Sergius, painted in 1651. Numerous cross-stones or fragments of old cross-stones had been set into the church walls. Others remained in the cemetery outside the walls. The manuscripts had been removed to the town for safety and placed in the museum of the Ardznian school (see n° 3). Fifteen villages, among which Mudurga and Arshni [***], came under the jurisdiction of the monastery, which also possessed extensive lands.
Confiscated after the Great War, the Holy Illuminator monastery of Mudurga was entirely destroyed. Apparently a Muslim place of pilgrimage has been created on the site.
Kossian PH(2), 1925. Oskian, 1951, 141-151. Devgants, 1991, 42-44. Thierry, 2005, 45-46