Surb Nicogaios

They were inhabited by Turks and Tatars. But besides them, Greeks, Armenians, Karaites, Jews, Gypsies also lived in the city. Each of the national communities occupied its own quarter or district, the center of which was a temple - a church, a kenasa or a synagogue. The Armenian Church is located on the current 44th International Street, on the grounds of the Home for the Elderly Disabled, a five-minute walk from the Dervishe Monastery. This is where the Armenian Quarter was once located.

Since it was outside the city wall, it was considered a suburb of Gezlev. The Turkish traveler Evliya Celebi, who visited the city in the middle of the XVII century, testified: “There is [...] one quarter of the Giaur Armenians who have a beautiful temple there.” Did E. Chelebi mention the current Armenian church? No, not her. The one that has survived to this day, laid much later - in 1817. The traveler, therefore, saw some other, but also stone, for the epithet "beautiful" in those days could refer exclusively to a stone structure. Where was the temple that the Turkish pilgrim wrote about? There is no exact answer to these questions. It is only known that in 1736, when Gezlev was taken by Russian troops under the command of Field Marshal B. Minich, the Turkish garrison and the Tatar population left the city in panic. The Turks and Tatars set fire to the shops of Christian merchants and churches. Among others, the Armenian temple suffered. Captain G. Manstein, adjutant of Minich, recalled that his detachment “found the city gates opened and the suburbs turned into ashes.” The mentioned suburb is the Armenian quarter. Russian troops responded with an equally brutal wave of arson. Tatar houses, mosques and dervish monasteries were looted and put to fire (there were three of them in the city at the time). When five days later the Russian army left the city, the Tatars returned to their homes, but instead they saw solid ashes. The slaughter of Christians began. Apparently, it was then that the stone Armenian church of St. Nicholas was turned into one of the Muslim temples, there is an assumption that the Armenian temple became the basis of modern dervishes. The Armenians had to think about building a new house of worship elsewhere. They decided to build it out of wood. Soon the newly-found Armenian temple was consecrated. In the reference book of the city of Evpatoria and its district, published in 1888, the history of the Armenian temple is described as follows: Outside the fortress was the quarter of the Armenians and the Church of St. John. Nicholas, burned by the Tatars, was then built a wooden, instead of which in 1817 was laid stone with three gates. The mentioned stone church "with three gates", founded in 1817, is the one that has survived to this day. It really has three entrances - west, north and south. Above them there were small porticoes with cross vaults, and the western was higher than the rest and served as a belfry. The church was built for a long time - there was always not enough money. Finally, two decades later, the temple was solemnly consecrated. By the way, this is a complete analogue of the Feodosian temple, in which the great marine painter Ivan Aivazovsky, an Armenian by birth, was baptized, married and recoiled. A few years later, the Crimean War began. Evpatoria came under the control of the Anglo-French-Turkish troops. A French garrison stood in the Armenian church. Some soldiers found it necessary to perpetuate their stay in these walls by scrawling their names with bayonets on the facade of the temple. At the end of the war, Armenians plastered their church. All traces of the presence of the enemy were erased. A century and a half has passed. Already these days, plaster began to slowly crumble. During the reconstruction, the builders knocked down the old plaster, and French “autographs” opened on one site. The date is clearly visible - 1855, as well as several names: Charles, Richard, Philippe. These inscriptions can still be seen today (to the right of the western entrance to the church). In guidebooks, the Armenian temple is often called Orthodox. That's not quite right. The fact is that the Armenian Apostolic Church arose in 301, before the split of Christianity into Eastern and Western, into Orthodoxy and Catholicism. The church is called Armenian-Gregorian after its founder Bishop Gregor. So it is more correct to say about the Evpatorian church on 44 International Street that it is an Armenian-Gregorian church. Under Soviet rule, the temple was taken from believers and was not used for worship. The Armenian community carried out restoration work. The interior of the Armenian church of Surb-Nikogayos looks modern. This is the result of the barbaric exploitation of the temple as a utility room in Soviet times. But the Armenian community of Yevpatoria now has its own holy place to communicate with God. And it is wonderful that another building, soon celebrating its bicentenary, is open to visit in Evpatoria.