The Tatev Monastery Complex is located near the city of Gorus, in Qarakilsa district, on the bank of the Okhchu River. The monastery was built upon a large basalt rock near Tatev village. This monastery was constructed in the 11th century as an Albanian monastery and later became Armenianized. The name of the monastery is mentioned in Moisey Kalankatuklu’s work "History of Albania." Since the Albanians belonged to the Diophysite denomination of Christianity, they were pressured by the Armenian Church. In 1286, the monastery came under the control of the Orbeli family, who were Kipchak Turks originally from north of the Caspian Sea and later Armenianized. During the Safavis rule (16th–18th centuries), restoration work was carried out in the complex, and several new buildings were constructed. Armenian sources from the early 18th century mention that the Tatev Monastery actively opposed the Echmiadzin Church. After the Karabakh Khanate was incorporated into Tsarist Russia in 1822, the independence of the Albanian Apostolic Church was abolished in 1836, and Tatev Monastery was subordinated to the Echmiadzin Catholicosate as a diocese.