Bana or Banak (Armenian: Բանակ, bɑnɑk, Georgian: ბანა, bɑnɑ) is a ruined medieval Christian cathedral in the Erzurum Province, northeastern Turkey, in what had formerly been a historical Armeno-Georgian marchland known to Armenians as Tayk and to Georgians as Tao.
Modeled after the Armenian cathedral of Zvartnots (near Yerevan, Armenia), Bana is a large tetraconch design, surrounded by a near-rotunda polygonal ambulatory and marked with a cylindrical drum. It was probably built by the Armenian catholicos Nerses III, the sponsor of Zvartnots, in the 7th century when the area was part of the Armenian principality of Tayk. After the area passed on to Georgian control in the 8th century (as part of Tao-Klarjeti), the church was reconstructed by the Georgian ruler Adarnase IV at some point between 881 and 923, and emerged in written records in the 11th century Georgian chronicles. Henceforth, it was used as a royal cathedral by the Georgian Bagratid dynasty until the Ottoman conquest of the area in the 16th century. The former cathedral was converted into a fortress by the Ottoman army during the Crimean War in the 1850s and was almost completely ruined during the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78.
The Bana cathedral is located on the north bank of the Penek (Irlağaç) Çayi near the village of Penek, Şenkaya district, Erzurum Province, Turkey. "Penek" is a Turkified typonym deriving from the original name of the area "Banak". It means "army" in Armenian and possibly takes its origin from the site in the Berdats Por district of Tayk – then a hereditary Mamikonid fief – where the royal army (Արքունի բանակ, Ark'uni Banak) was headquartered during the rule of Arshakuni in the Kingdom of Armenia in the 1st century. The name entered the Georgian usage in the form of Bana because of the Georgian phonology, which makes the "k" sound silent.
The dating of the Bana cathedral has been a subject of scholarly debate. The Bana cathedral is first mentioned in the 11th-century chronicle of Sumbat, who reports that the Georgian prince Adarnase IV (r. 881-923) ordered the building of the church of Bana "by the hand" of Kwirike, who subsequently became the first bishop of Bana. While the scholars such as Ekvtime Taqaishvili, Shalva Amiranashvili, and Stepan Mnatsakanyan tend to interpret the passage literally, Chubinashvili, Vakhtang Beridze and Tiran Marutyan identify Adarnase as a renovator, not a builder of the church. This view, now shared by most art scholars, dates the Bana church – clearly modeled on the contemporaneous Zvartnots cathedral near Yerevan – to the mid-7th century. It was when the Chalcedonian-Armenian catholicos Nerses III, who presided over several important religious projects Zvartnots included, resided in exile in Tayk c. 653-58.
Devastated during the 8th century by the Byzantine–Arab war, the region of Tayk/Tao was gradually resettled by its new masters, the Georgian Bagratids, and under their patronage a monastic revival took place. With the settlements gradually expanding from the predominantly Georgian-populated north to the predominantly Armenian populated south and south-west, the Georgian princes reconstructed a number of monasteries abandoned by Armenians and built new foundations.
From the time of Adarnase’s reconstruction, the cathedral of Bana was one of the principal royal churches of the early Georgian Bagratids. It was used for the coronation of Bagrat IV in 1027 and his marriage to Helena, a niece of the Byzantine emperor Romanos III Argyros in 1032. In the 15th century, King Vakhtang IV of Georgia (r. 1442-1446) and his consort Sitikhatun were buried at Bana. It was also the seat of the Georgian Orthodox bishop of Bana, whose diocese also included the neighboring areas of Taos-Kari, Panaskerti, and Oltisi. With the Ottoman conquest of the area in the 16th century, Bana was abandoned by Christians. During the Crimean War (1853–1865), the Ottoman military converted the church into a fortress, adding the crude bulwark still visible on the south side. During the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78, it was shelled by the Russian artillery, blasting the dome off and inflicting severe damage on the edifice. Later the Russians carted off much of masonry to build a late-19th century church in Oltu.
The church was first described and sketched by the German botanist Karl Koch in 1843. He declared it the most remarkable church in the East after the Hagia Sophia. Koch was followed by the Russian ethnographer Yevgeny Veidenbaum in 1879 and the Georgian historian Dimitri Bakradze in 1881. The latter two found the church already without a dome, but reported about still surviving frescos and a Georgian inscription in the asomtavruli script. From 1902 to 1907, the ruins of Bana were scrupulously studied by an expedition led by the Georgian archaeologist Ekvtime Taqaishvili. Inaccessible to Soviet nationals, the monument was a subject of study of some Western scholars during the Cold War era.
Bana recapitulates the so-called tetraconch-in-ambulatory (aisled tetraconch) style probably influenced by the “Golden Octagon” at Antioch and culminating in the 7th-century Caucasian architecture in the Zvartnots design. It is a large tetraconch with three-tiered choirs and arcades in the lower parts of each apse. It is encased in a continuous near-rotunda polygonal ambulatory with its diameter of 37.45 m. and with its façades adorned with colonnades. The interior is essentially a large pyramid formed by the exterior polygon, tetraconch and the cupola resting upon a cylindrical drum. The pylons, located between the arms of the tetraconch, accommodate galleries arranged along three tiers.
The lower portions of each of the four apses, instead of having an unbroken wall, open through arches towards the ambulatory. The building is more than 30 m tall. The architectural details are notable for high craftsmanship and artistry. Round pillars, located within the span of the apses and galleries, are provided with capitals adorned with volutes. The façade is provided with a row of blind arches along its perimeter. The arches are adorned with floral ornaments. What presently remains of the church is the first floor half-submerged in its own ruins, the east apse with a colonnade and a one ambulatory column with its carved capital.
