The monastery ceased to function during the Armenian Genocide of 1915 which resulted in the Armenian population of the region being exterminated . According to Sevan Nişanyan it was demolished around 1951 , at the same period that an official order for the demolition of the Holy Cross Cathedral of Aghtamar was issued . The village of Narek is now largely Kurdish-populated and is known as Yemişlik in Turkish and Nerik in Kurdish . The scholar James R. Russell , who visited the monastery site in 1994 , was told by local Kurdish villagers three years later that a 10th-century '' khachkar '' ( cross stone ) was destroyed by the Turkish police
Armenian Genocide
Armenian Genocide
Narekavank