Tomb of Saint Khat, or the church of the Holy Cross in Hanksdun

This is the parish church of the village of Haksdun or Hanksdun [Topraklık], located at 39°23’ N and 40°20’ E, on the left bank of the Kayl River [[Peri Nehri], upstream from the city of Gheghi or K‘ëghi [Kiğı], in the Armenian canton of Khortziank‘. Ha(n)ksdun is built in the western foothills of Mount Ariudz [Kösmür Dağı], at the base of a mountain culminating at over 2,250 m, whose slopes also hold the monastery of the Holy Precursor of K‘ëghi (Sourp Garabed), sometimes called for this reason the Holy Precursor of Ha(n)ksdun. The primates of Khortziank‘ were longtime residents of this nearby monastery, which they left temporarily only to move downhill to the monastery of the Holy Mother of God “Overlooking the River” (n° 60).

The Ha(n)ksdun sanctuary is dedicated to Bishop Khat, a 4^th-century figure, steward and locum tenens of Catholicos Nerses the Great (353-358, 363-373), who was himself from the family of Saint Gregory the Illuminator. It is there that tradition places his tomb, over which a martyrium was built, in a spot that came to be called Khat Hayr, “Father Khat”. Against this martyrium, in 1703, Archbishop Stephen (Sdep‘annos, 1694-1702, 1703 and 1705), primate of Khortziank‘ and superior of the Holy Precursor of K‘ëghi, erected a larger church: the Holy Cross. Long venerated, Saint Khat also had a cenotaph in the tomb of the Nine Saints of T‘ortan (n° 47), at the foot of Mount Sebuh [Kara Dağ].

The Ha(n)ksdun sanctuary includes: the martyrium of Saint Khat, a barrel-vaulted single-vessel nave 10.5 × 5.7 meters, reinforced by a transverse arch; against this church to the south and communicating with it by a passage built on the level of its early door stands the church of the Holy Cross, a single-vessel nave with a projecting apse, measuring 15.6 × 9.7 m, with three transverse arches and a pitched roof. The tomb of Saint Khat was an important place of pilgrimage. The Ha(n)ksdun church also possessed manuscripts.

Confiscated after the Great War, the sanctuary of Ha(n)ksdun was long used for storage. In the 1980s the church of the Holy Cross had already lost much of its roof. Since then the monument has deteriorated considerably. The vault has completely collapsed. On the western façade, which is run-down, the window frames and bars have been torn away, as have been the keystone with its cross motif and part of the moldings around the main door. Together with several neighboring localities, of no less archeological or historical interest, Ha(n)ksdun is in danger of being submerged by the waters of a dam.