The St. Harutyun Church

The St.Harutyun Church is located in the village of Melikashen in the Hadrut region. On the tympanum of the front door, there is a record of the construction of the church: “We, the inhabitants of the village of Melikjalu, built the church of St. Harutyun in 1889.” This single-nave basilica is rectangular in plan, on the eastern side it has a semi-circular altar with two sacristies on the right and left. On the outside, a gable roof is a single-pitched roof on the inside. The only entrance opens from the south, the lighting comes from five windows, one of which opens from the south, three from the east and one from the west. Built from local raw stone, corner borders, portal, window borders are hewn. The church is 16.3 meters long, 9.2 meters wide and 6 meters high. In the Soviet years, the church was used as a warehouse, and that’s when the roof was covered with tin. Melikashen, also known as Melikjanlu, was captured and burned by Azerbaijani armed forces during the first Artsakh war in August 1992, but our freedom fighters managed to expel the enemy out of the village, causing them great damage. It has been under Azerbaijani occupation since October 2020.