The article says that, traditionally, Saint Bartholomew founded a church on the site around AD 62. It gives conflicting origins for the monastery: built in the 7th century and expanded in the 10th, and also originally built in the ninth. It was restored in the second half of the 13th century and completely rebuilt under Zachariah in 1330.
The monastery sits in a deep canyon along the Araxes, about 9 miles (15 km) northwest of Julfa, on the Iranian side of the border with Nakhchivan. Wars damaged it in the 11th and 12th centuries, and it was rebuilt in the Safavid era after war and earthquake damage. The article gives no dimensions or materials.
Abbas the Great expelled residents in 1604 and the monastery was abandoned. It was restored in the latter part of the 17th century and rebuilt again with Qajar encouragement between 1819 and 1825. UNESCO listed it in 2008 with the Armenian Monastic Ensembles of Iran.
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