A Survey on Preservation Project for Ctotus-Ctuc (Surp Garabet-Gtuds) Monastery in Çarpanak Island

In the easternmost part of Turkey, Ctotus-Ctuc (Surp Garabet-Gtuds) Monastery is located in Çarpanak Island, one of the four islands in Lake Van, the biggest lake of the country. A moderate climate dominates the City of Van and suburbs by the effect of mildness from Lake Van. This moderate climate plays a big part on architectural structuring in settlements around the lake and islands in it. The island is arrived by boats from piers around Lake Van. The Monastery that was consisted of various building parts is known as mentioned first time in a manuscript dated 1414 as Ctouts. According to the belief, the monastery structure was built dedicated to Saint Jean, the quadruple guardian angel. Until 1918 Armenians in the region had been practicing their worships and socio-cultural activities freely there in tolerance atmosphere of the Ottoman State. Armenians had to leave the region in the year 1918 as a result of negative impacts of nationalism movements of the late XVIIth century which had been started by imperialist powers in Europe. Natural structures of the Monastery and the island were impacted under negative developments causing outhouses to be damaged entirely and destroyed. Application works for preservation have been started by Van Governorship between 2010 and 2012. All architectural preservation projects and reports on Ctotus Monastery, Jamaton and Saint Jean Church are prepared under coordination of lecturer Dr. Şahabettin Öztürk, Restoration Department Head at the Department of Architecture of Van Yüzüncü Yıl University, Faculty of Architecture and Design and supervised by the project author. Scientific excavations and application steps are required in order to apply preservation project and to find out other architectural Monastery buildings. Christian religious buildings in Çarpanak have considerable importance from the aspects of architecture and art history.