The Monastery of Saint George of Goms ( hy, Գոմքի Սուրբ Գևորգ վանք, "Saint George") was an Armenian monastery in the historic province of

Vaspurakan Vaspurakan (, Western Armenian pronunciation: ''Vasbouragan'') was the eighth province of the ancient kingdom of Armenia, which later became an independent kingdom during the Middle Ages, centered on Lake Van. Located in what is now southeaster ...

, in present-day

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...

. The local Armenian peasants called it Jojglukh vank (Monastery of the Great Head) ( hy, Ջոջգլուխ վանք). Goms, meaning "cowsheds", was the name of the nearest village to the monastery: this village is now called Kümüs by its Kurdish inhabitants, its official name is Çanakdüzü. The monastery lied at shores of

Lake Van Lake Van ( tr, Van Gölü; hy, Վանա լիճ, translit=Vana lič̣; ku, Gola Wanê) is the largest lake in Turkey. It lies in the far east of Turkey, in the provinces of Van and Bitlis in the Armenian highlands. It is a saline soda lake ...

, within a compact and almost square fortified enclosure. The masonry of the enclosure wall is not bonded into the structure of the church, implying that it is a later construction and the church was originally free-standing. There are oval shaped defensive towers at the south-east and north-east corners of the wall. The wall's masonry shows two distinct layers: the bottom three quarters was constructed using roughly shaped but regularly laid stone blocks and the top third uses larger and less regularly shaped stones.

History

This monastery is not mentioned in any known historical source. However historian-orientalist J. M. Thierry considers that both the design of the church and historical events indicate that the church was probably built just after the conquest of this district, called Kardchkan in Armenian, by

Gagik Artsruni Gagik I Artsruni ( hy, Գագիկ Ա Արծրունի; 879/880 – 943) was an Armenian noble of the Artsruni dynasty who ruled over Vaspurakan in southern Armenia, first as prince of northwestern Vaspurakan (Gagik III, 904–908) and after t ...

, the king of

, in 905 AD. The head of the monastery was, by tradition, the bishop of Kardchkan - which suggests that the monastery was once the most important in the district. After the Armenian king John-Senekerim II ceded his

Kingdom of Vaspurakan The Kingdom of Vaspurakan (; also transliterated as Vasbouragan from Western Armenian) was a medieval Armenian kingdom centered on Lake Van, located in what is now eastern Turkey and northwestern Iran. It was named after Vaspurakan, a province o ...

to the

Byzantine empire The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

in 1022, the empire produced a list of the region’s bishopric seats; one such seat was at a monastery of Saint George - this could perhaps have been Goms. The monks possessed a relic that they claimed to be the head of Saint George, and for this reason the monastery was an important pilgrimage site. Due to increasing Kurdish violence, in 1830 the monks had to abandon the monastery and move to a more secure location in the village of Goms. There was an unsuccessful attempt to return to the monastery at the end of the 19th century. The isolated location of the monastery has helped to maintain its preservation and it was functioning until the

Armenian genocide The Armenian genocide was the systematic destruction of the Armenian people and identity in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Spearheaded by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), it was implemented primarily through t ...

in 1915. In 1923 this abandoned monastery was plundered and ruined by Turks and Kurds. But considerable damage has occurred since the early 1970s. In addition, the rising waters of lake Van during the 1990s have eroded the coastline within the bay and now threatens the base of the monastery's fortified wall. {{Armenian Churches, state=expanded Armenian churches in Turkey Christian monasteries established in the 10th century Destroyed churches Demolished buildings and structures in Turkey Vaspurakan Armenian buildings in Turkey