The Cathedral of the Holy Cross (Armenian: Սուրբ Խաչ եկեղեցի, romanized: Surp Khachʿ egeghetsʿi, Turkish: Akdamar Kilisesi or Surp Haç Kilisesi) on Aghtamar Island, in Lake Van in eastern Turkey, is a medieval Armenian Apostolic cathedral, built as a palatine church for the kings of Vaspurakan and later serving as the seat of the Catholicosate of Aghtamar.

During his reign, King Gagik I Artsruni (r. 908–943/944) of the Armenian kingdom of Vaspurakan chose the island of Aght'amar as one of his residences, founding a settlement there.

It was built of pink volcanic tufa(tuff)[citation needed] by the architect-monk Manuel during the years 915–921, with an interior measuring 14.80 m by 11.5 m and the dome reaching 20.40 m above ground.

[2] In 1915, during the Armenian genocide, the church was looted, and the monastic buildings destroyed[3] and in July 1916 the Catholicosate was abolished by the Ottoman Empire.

In 2005 the structure was closed to visitors as it underwent a heavy restoration, being opened as a museum by the Turkish government a year later.

[1] The unique importance of the Cathedral Church of the Holy Cross comes from the extensive array of bas-relief carving of mostly biblical scenes that adorn its external walls.

[6] Following the Armenian genocide and the establishment of the Turkish republic, the church was largely officially ignored and thus exposed to extensive vandalism.

[7][8] The ornate stone balustrade of the royal gallery largely disappeared; comparisons with pre-1914 photographs show signs of damage to the relief carvings.

It officially re-opened as a museum on 29 March 2007 in a ceremony attended by the Turkish Minister of Culture, government officials, ambassadors of several countries, Patriarch Mesrob II (spiritual leader of the Armenian community of Turkey), a delegation from Armenia headed by the Deputy to the Armenian Minister of Culture, and a large group of invited journalists from many news organizations around the world.

[14] According to Maximilian Hartmuth, an academician at Sabanci University, "the church was turned into a museum rather than re-opened as a place of worship following the restoration was, for example, claimed to be a wedge separating the monument from Turkey's Armenian community".

The critics, writing for media such as Radikal, Milliyet, or Turkish Daily News, furthermore lamented that permission to mount a cross on top of the church was not given.

[16] Armenian religious leaders invited to the opening ceremony refused to attend because the church was being reopened as a secular museum.

[22] Hürriyet columnist Cengiz Çandar characterized the way the Turkish government handled the opening as an extension of an ongoing "cultural genocide" of the Armenians.

[23] He characterizes the renaming of the church from Armenian to Turkish as part of a broader program to rename Armenian historical sites in Turkey, and attributes the refusal to place a cross atop the church as symptomatic of religious intolerance in Turkish society.

[24]Çandar notes that the Agos issue published on the day of the murder of Hrant Dink featured a Dink commentary on the Turkish government's handling of the Akdamar issue, which the late journalist characterized as "A real comedy... A real tragedy...".

[12] Demonstrators outside the Ministry of the Interior in Ankara chanted slogans against the possibility of a cross being erected atop the church, declaring "You are all Armenians, we are all Turks and Muslims".