Varzahan Monastery

Varzahan
Varzahan
	Varzahan Monastery in 1911.
Religion
Affiliation	Armenian Apostolic Church
Status	demolished sometime between the 1920s and the mid-1950s
Location
Location	near Uğrak village
	Shown within Turkey
Geographic coordinates	40°20′00″N 40°07′00″E / 40.333333°N 40.116667°E
Architecture
Style	Armenian
Completed	12th century

Varzahan (Armenian: Վարզահան վանք, Turkish: Uğrak Kiliseleri or Varzahan Kiliseleri), was an Armenian church founded in the 12th century near village Uğrak (formerly Varzahan), 10 km northwest of Bayburt, in eastern Turkey.

History

Situated in a settlement called Varzahan in Upper Armenia province of Historical Armenia's northern part. Varzahan was a large Armenian settlement in a 5.7 miles northwest to the Baberd city (now Bayburt) of a northernmost district of Upper Armenia called Sper. Most of its population was massacred by Turks during the 18th century. The monastery was damaged in the same period.

The archaeologist Austin Henry Layard has described this place in 1849 while travelling from Trebizond to Mosul. Austin Henry Layard said:
---The only place of any interest, passed during our ride, was a small Armenian village, the remains of a larger, with the ruins of three early Christian churches, or Baptisteries.---