Varagavank, also called the Monastery of Varag or Yedi Kilise, stands on the slopes of Mount Erek, about 6 miles (9 kilometers) southeast of Van in eastern Turkey. Tradition says that in the late third century Hripsime hid a fragment of the True Cross here. The Church of Surb Nshan was built in 653, and the Surb Sopi church in 981. The monastery was founded in the early eleventh century by Senekerim-Hovhannes Artsruni, King of Vaspurakan, who was buried here in 1025.
The monastery was damaged in the earthquake of 1648, and the architect Tiratur built the square gavit that year. Frescoes were added to the narthex in 1779. Turkish forces burned the monastery in 1915, and it suffered further destruction in the 1960s and was damaged by the 2011 Van earthquake.
Six churches survive in part. Surb Gevorg is the best preserved. It was a major manuscript center in the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries.
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