T'ANAHAT / Vth-Vlth centuries
This small church is all that remains of a monastic complex located in a very beautiful and completely isolated setting of the district of Sisian in the southern part of the region. This is a single-naved basilica with a horse-shoe apse, flanked on the south by a sacristy and a four columned portico which is actually destroyed. This ground plan which seems very similar to that of the church of Diraklar (in the north) is probably derived from analogous Syrian buildings. Placed on the southern side which held the entrance to the church this portico served to shelter pilgrims and perhaps the catechumens who were not admitted into the holy place.
The triumphal art of the apse miraculously preserved amidst the general collapse rests on flattened capitals decorated with unusual floral motifs of clearly oriental inspiration. The north walls show clear signs of restoration. The small sacristy shaped like the base of a pyramid is particularly interesting.

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