Ruines of Surb Nishan monastery

 temple, church, ruins, christianity, place with historical importance, destroyed, Armenian Apostolic church

Surb Nishan (Armenian: Սուրբ Նշան վանք, meaning "Holy Sign" or "Holy Cross"), also spelt Surb Nshan is a destroyed monastery of Armenian Apostolic Church. Seems to have been established by Armenian king Atom-Ashot, the son of King Senekerim, probably while his father was still alive (i.e. before 1027). The monastery was named after the celebrated relic that Senekerim had brought from Varagavank, and which was returned there after his death.

The Catholicos of the Armenian Church, Petros I Getadardz, lived in Sivas from 1023 to 1026 before returning to Ani, the then seat of the Armenian Catholicosate. In 1046, after the capture of Ani by Byzantine forces in 1045, Catholicos Petros was banished from the city and forced to reside in Erzurum. In 1049 he returned to Ani, where he consecrated his nephew Khachik as Catholicos, but was summoned to Constantinople where he remained in semi-captivity until 1051. Petros was then allowed to live in Sivas but was forbidden by the Byzantine emperor to return to Ani. He took up residence in Surp Nishan monastery, where he built a residency. After his death in 1058 he was buried in a tomb inside the monastery, below the east wall of the Surp Astvatsatsin church.

In 1387-88, Step'anos, the archbishop of Sebastia, was executed for refusing to convert to Islam. For a while the monastery of Surb Nishan was converted into a dervish sanctuary, and other churches in Sivas were demolished.

In 1915 Surp Nishan monastery was the main repository of medieval Armenian manuscripts in the Sebastia region and at least 283 manuscripts are recorded. The library was not destroyed during the Armenian Genocide and most of the manuscripts survived. In 1918 about 100 of them were transferred to the Armenian Patriarchate in Jerusalem. Others are now in the Matenaderan in Yerevan, or in public or private collections.

In 1939 the traveller H. E. King visited Surp Nishan. He found that the monastery was being used as a military depot and he was unable to go inside. He wrote that the walled enclosure of the monastery was still intact and the main church appeared to be "in an excellent state of preservation", complete with its dome.

The monastery is now entirely destroyed and a sprawling military base occupies the site. The date of the destruction is uncertain. A short article in The Armenian Reporter of March 30, 1978 says that news had reached Istanbul that the Surp Nishan church in Sivas was being demolished, and that the Armenian Patriarchate of Istanbul was expected to lodge a complaint. Some books say that the last remnants of the monastery was demolished in the 1980s. A religious shrine (a Muslim one) of some sort still exists within the army base and can be visited for several hours on one day of the week.

The text is taken from VirtualAni.org: virtualani.org/surpnishan/index.htm