By 1987 only two of the four stone statues of angels on the bell tower had survived. The restoration began in 1981 and continued until 1988 and was supervised by Volodya Babayan. By the 1970s the cathedral "looked like it survived heavy shelling." After public pressure, Soviet and Azerbaijani authorities granted permission for the launch of a restoration project of the cathedral in the 1980s. It was then looted and its stones were used to build several upscale houses in the Azerbaijani part of the city. Its dome and part of the walls surrounding it were destroyed in the 1950s.
After the region came under Soviet control, due to state atheist policies, it was eventually closed down in 1930 and was turned into a granary in the 1940s. The cathedral was damaged and gradually declined. The majority of the Armenian population of Shusha was massacred or expelled in March 1920. Ruins of Shushi and the damaged cathedral (in the background, in the center) in the aftermath of the 1920 massacre. Azerbaijan's announcement of the church "renovation" after it came under Azerbaijani control in 2020 has been met with criticism and concern by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom and various Armenian groups alike. In Azerbaijan, the cathedral is called Gazanchy ( Azerbaijani: Qazançı) the state denies its Armenian Apostolic heritage, instead vaguely referring to it as "Christian". During the 2020 war, it was damaged by Azerbaijani attacks, viewed as a “possible war crime” by Human Rights Watch. The cathedral was extensively restored in the aftermath of the first war and reconsecrated in 1998. During the first Nagorno-Karabakh War Azerbaijan used the cathedral as an armoury to store hundreds of missiles. It was damaged during the March 1920 massacre of the city's Armenians-and the destruction of their half of the city-by Azerbaijanis and experienced a decades-long decline well into the Soviet period. A landmark of Shusha and the Karabakh region, and of Armenian cultural and religious identity, it is listed as cultural and historical monument of the breakaway Republic of Artsakh.īuilt between 18, the cathedral was consecrated in 1888. Standing 35 metres (115 ft) high, Ghazanchetsots is one of the largest Armenian churches in the world. It is the cathedra of the Diocese of Artsakh of the Armenian Apostolic Church. Holy Savior Cathedral ( Armenian: Սուրբ Ամենափրկիչ մայր տաճար, Surb Amenap′rkich mayr tachar), commonly referred to as Ghazanchetsots ( Armenian: Ղազանչեցոց), is an Armenian Apostolic cathedral in Shusha (also known as Shushi) in Azerbaijan, in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
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