VAN/EDREMİT KİLİSESİ PROJE VE UYGULAMA ÇALIŞMALARI HAKKINDA BİR ARAŞTIRMA

Abstract

City of Van and surrounding have hosted many civilizations since earlier ages untill now. Various cultures had constructed many religious, civic and military buildings in the region where they had dominated in time, and played important roles in the settlement of the area. During Middle Ages, Van Region had been domineered by Seljuk and Ottoman States. Muslims and Christians had built many religious works in circumstances of political tolerance mentality. Edremit Church is located in Van’s Edremit District, at 18th km south of Lake Van where the Silk Road had passed through. It has been founded on a flat surface at south-west of Kiz Kalesi which is located at a quite high hill at two kms south of Edremit. Any written document is not known about the building date and architect of Edremit Church. The church is thought that had been built in XVth or XVIth centuries. The building has a rectangular formed layout towards east-west direction. A double-winged wooden door in the western main outer wall provides entrance to the main space. Top of the rectangular formed main space is covered by a circular craddle vault laying toward east-west direction. Two symmetrically designed one-storey pastophories with circular cradle vaults are placed in both sides of the abscissa on the eastern front of the church. Survey, restitution and restoration projects for the Edremit Church have been prepared in application scale by Sahabettin Ozturk, chairman of the Chamber of Architects' Van Branch in 2004. Being one of the countless examples from Christian Armenians in the region, a place that carry various cultures' traces, Edremit Church has survived hitherto in the Ottoman tolerance.