Armenian Cultural and Religious Heritage After September 2023

The departure of the Armenian population created serious concerns about the preservation of centuries of Armenian cultural and religious heritage.

Churches and monasteries

Nagorno-Karabakh contains numerous Armenian Christian religious monuments, including medieval monasteries, churches, chapels, khachkars, cemeteries, and historic settlements.

Important examples include:

Gandzasar Monastery, a major thirteenth-century Armenian religious complex.

Amaras Monastery, associated with early Armenian Christianity and traditions concerning Saint Gregory the Illuminator's descendants.

Dadivank Monastery, an important medieval religious complex in territory Azerbaijan regained in 2020.

Ghazanchetsots Cathedral in Shushi/Shusha, which was damaged during the 2020 war.

Numerous village churches and historic cemeteries, some dating to the medieval period.

These monuments have religious, architectural, historical, and community significance.

They also provide physical evidence of the region's long Armenian cultural history.

Documented destruction and alteration

Independent researchers have used satellite imagery, historical photographs, and other sources to document damage and destruction affecting Armenian cultural sites.

Caucasus Heritage Watch, a research initiative associated with Cornell and Purdue Universities, has monitored hundreds of sites.

Its research has documented destruction, damage, and threats to cultural heritage.

ACLED reported in 2024 that the destruction of Armenian historical, religious, political, and residential sites accelerated after the September 2023 offensive.

Documented cases included the removal of Armenian monuments, demolition of public buildings, and destruction affecting religious and residential structures.

In Stepanakert, Azerbaijani authorities demolished the former Artsakh parliament building and other structures associated with the previous Armenian administration.

Some changes were presented by Azerbaijan as reconstruction, redevelopment, or removal of symbols of separatist rule.

For displaced Armenians, these actions raised fears that the physical evidence of their community's recent political and cultural existence was being erased.

ACLED

What the monitoring evidence establishes

Cultural-heritage research requires careful distinctions.

Not every damaged building is a protected historical monument. Not every demolition establishes a discriminatory motive. Satellite imagery can establish that a structure was removed, but it does not always reveal why.

At the same time, repeated destruction of identifiable religious or cultural sites may provide strong evidence of systematic patterns.

Caucasus Heritage Watch reported in July 2025 that it had not observed new episodes of outright heritage destruction during its two most recent monitoring rounds, while documenting continuing damage to two Armenian cemeteries and a nineteenth-century church.

Its wider monitoring work, updated in 2026, continued to identify destroyed, damaged, and threatened sites.

These findings demonstrate why heritage conditions must be tracked over time rather than described as either universally preserved or universally destroyed.

Azerbaijani cultural heritage and historical responsibility

The history of cultural destruction in the region also includes serious damage to Azerbaijani and Islamic heritage during the period of Armenian control.

Caucasus Heritage Watch documented extensive damage to Azerbaijani heritage sites between 1994 and 2020.

Recognizing these documented losses does not diminish the obligation to protect Armenian heritage today.

International cultural-property protections apply irrespective of which community created a monument or which government currently controls the territory.

caucasusheritage.cornell.edu

The importance of international monitoring

Effective preservation requires accurate inventories, independent access, satellite monitoring, conservation expertise, and public reporting.

UNESCO and other international heritage bodies have roles in documenting and protecting cultural sites, although access and political disagreements can limit their work.

For displaced Armenians, cultural preservation is inseparable from the possibility of returning to ancestral communities.

A church or cemetery is not merely an architectural object. It may be the location of family baptisms, marriages, funerals, commemorations, and centuries of community memory.