Holy Apostles Monastery

The Holy Apostles Monastery, called Arakelots, stood at Mush in Taron. It was one of the three well-known monasteries of Taron, with Surb Karapet and the monastery of St. Hovhannes at Eghrdut.¹ The History Museum of Armenia calls it a major center of medieval Armenian culture and writing, and says it was founded by Gregory the Illuminator in 312.² It is also known as the monastery of the Translators, Targmanchats.²

The monastery was destroyed in 1915, in the Armenian Genocide, when the Armenians of Mush were massacred.²³ German archaeologists had asked the Ottoman authorities for permission to take its door to Berlin, but the advance of the Russian army stopped the plan. In 1916 the historian and archaeologist Smbat Ter-Avetisian found the door in Bitlis, among the goods left by the retreating Ottoman troops. Refugees carried it to Tiflis, and in 1925 it was moved to the History Museum of Armenia in Yerevan.²

The door, dated 1134, is a masterpiece of medieval Armenian art, the work of the masons Toros and Grigor and the artist Ghukas. It is the one relic of the monastery that survives.²