What is "horomos"

Horomos (; also known as Horomosivank or Ghoshavank) is a tenth or eleventh-century Armenian monastic complex, about 15 kilometers northeast of the medieval ruins in Ani in present-day eastern Turkey. The collection of churches and chapels made Horomos one of the most important religious and cultural centuries of Armenia during the medieval period.

Horomos was founded by a group of Armenian monks around 931-36, during the reign of King Abas I Bagratuni (r. ca. 929-953). The monastic complex over time came to include the individual churches of Sts. John, Minas, and George, a triumphal arch, and mausolea.

Some time after 1965, the Monastery of Horomos was partly destroyed, most likely as part of the Turkish government's policy of cultural genocide. A tomb purported to belong to King Ashot III (953-977) which had survived at least up to 1920 is now nowhere to be found. Some buildings have entirely vanished, and most of the surviving walls have been stripped of their facing masonry. The dome of the Church of the St. John collapsed in the 1970s. The site lies next to the Armenian border and gaining permission to access the monastery is all but impossible.