Khtzkonk Monastery, also called Beşkilise, stands in the Digor River gorge near Digor in Kars Province, Turkey, about 12 miles (19 kilometers) west of the Armenian border. It was an ensemble of five Armenian churches, begun in the seventh century and completed in the thirteenth century in the Armenian Bagratid kingdom.
The monastery was photographed intact in August 1920, shortly before Turkey took the region from Armenia. It was abandoned after that year. In 1959 the French scholar Jean-Michel Thierry found that four of the five churches had been destroyed. Only the Church of Saint Sargis survived.
The cause of the damage is disputed. One historian suggested rolling rocks, while others say explosives were used. William Dalrymple noted in 1989 that the surviving church's side walls were blown outward. No restoration is recorded.
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