St. Grigor Narekatsi

Born in 951 to a family of scholarly churchmen, St. Gregory entered Narek Monestary on the south-east shore of Lake Van at a young age. Shortly before the first millenium of Christianity, Narek Monestary was a thriving center of learning. These were the relatively quiet, creative times before the Turkic and Mongol invasions that changed Armenian life forever. Armenia was experiencing a renaissance in literature, painting, architecture and theology, of which St. Gregory was a leading figure.