Kozluca () is a village in the

Kars District Kars District (also: ''Merkez'', meaning "central" in Turkish) is a district of the Kars Province of Turkey. Its seat is the city of Kars.

Kars Province Kars Province (; Azerbaijani: Qars Rayonu; ; ) is a province of Turkey, located in the northeastern part of the country. It shares part of its closed border with Armenia. Its area is 10,193 km2, and its population is 274,829 (2022). The pr ...

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

. Its population is 102 (2023). The village houses the remains of the Armenian Bagnayr Monastery, built in the 10th century CE. The name "Bagnayr" means "cave of fire altars", suggesting the much earlier presence of a

Zoroastrian Zoroastrianism ( ), also called Mazdayasnā () or Beh-dīn (), is an Iranian religion centred on the Avesta and the teachings of Zarathushtra Spitama, who is more commonly referred to by the Greek translation, Zoroaster ( ). Among the wo ...

sanctuary on the site.

Bagnayr monastery

According to Armenian sources Vahram Pahlavouni founded the monastery in the year 989. It was probably abandoned at the end of the 13th century. Currently, only one of the original buildings of the complex, the ''Küçük Kozluca Church'', remains partially preserved. This six-foil domed church has lost all of the coverings, and almost all of the exterior stone blocks have been scavenged, but the structure remains intact. Two walls and an arch vaulted door remain, but the annular vault of the door is ruined. At the internal section of the remaining walls, 5 arches and 5 dummy columns are interconnected and epitaphs are placed in between the columns. The middle dome and north wall of the church are collapsed and only 2 columns have remained. The top of the remaining south walls is decorated with geometrical designs in carving technique.Jean Michel Thierry, ''A Propos de quelques monuments chrétiens du Vilayet de Kars'', Revue des Études Arméniennes XVII (1983), pp. 329-394. File:Kozluca (Kars) - Bagnayr Monastery.jpg, File:Kozluca (Kars) - petroglyph.jpg,

References

{{Kars District Villages in Kars District Kurdish settlements in Turkey