Ancha monastery

Ancha (Georgian ანჩის მონასტერი anchis monasteri ) was a medieval Georgian monastery and the cathedral of the Bishop of Ancha. It befi8ndet today in the village Anaçlı in the Artvin province in Turkey.

The former cross-domed church is now completely in ruins.

The earliest written documentation of the Monastery of Ancha dates from around 951 from the Vitae of Gregory of Chandsta Giorgi Merchule, the dates the church complex to the early 9th century. She was one of the most important religious and cultural centers of the Principality of Klardschetien, which was conquered in the 1550s by the Ottoman Empire. In the mid-17th century the church was abandoned. Your preserved Christian relics, such as the icon of the Protector were transferred to the Georgian capital Tbilisi. Shortly after the Russian takeover of Artvin region, the historical Georgian churches and monasteries of the Georgian scholar Dimitri Bakradze visited, who reported from the heavy damage in Ancha. 1904 Nicholas Marr reported that only a small portion of northwestern and northern walls and an altar apse survived with a fragment of a dome.