MARMASHEN / Xth-Xlth centuries
The monastery is located on the banks of the Akhurean a few kilometers from the city of Leninakan near the ancient village of Vahramashen. It was built during the reign of Vahram Pahlavuni. The complex is composed of three churches of various dimensions whose east walls are in almost perfect allignment. They reproduce the plan of a longitudinal domed hall already adopted in the Vllth century at T'alish and Ptłni. The main church, once preceded by a porch which has now disappeared, has exterior walls regularly subdivided by small blind arcades. These arcades likewise surround the portals and the triangular north and south niches as they do at Ani. The polygonal drum is subdivid­ed by grouped colonnettes set at the angles and surmounted by an umbrella shaped roof. The monastery also had a fourth church whose ruins clearly show a plan very similar to that of St. Sergius in the nearby monastery of Khtskonk, i.e., a tetraconch inscribed in a cylinder.

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