[1] The monastery was founded during the reign of the Artsruni King Gagik I of Vaspurakan (r. 908–43)[3] by Armenian monks who fled the Byzantine Empire due to religious persecution.

[4][5] Gregory of Narek (Grigor Narekatsi, c. 951–1003), a prominent mystical poet,[6][7] studied and flourished at the monastery, making the "name of the institution immortal".

[11] In 1853 Austen Henry Layard called Narek a "large Armenian village" and noted that the monastery is "much frequented in pilgrimage by the Christians of Wan [Van] and the surrounding country."

[14] A 1911 photo by the ethnographer Yervand Lalayan shows "peasants with oxen plowing a field directly beneath its walls.

"[10] The American missionary Herbert M. Allen (1865–1911) wrote in 1903 that[15] The monastic complex contained two churches: St. Sandukht and Surb Astvatsatsin ("Holy Mother of God").

[4] According to Sevan Nişanyan it was demolished around 1951, at the same period that an official order for the demolition of the Holy Cross Cathedral of Aghtamar was issued, but was not carried out.

"[1] In October 2003, as part of the commemorations of the 1000th anniversary of Gregory of Narek, Mesrob II Mutafyan, the Armenian Patriarch of Constantinople, visited the site of the monastery.

NTV reported that a villager, who had turned what had survived of the monastery into a stable prevented entry and asked Mutafyan and accompanying visitors for money.

[22] In December 2008 the Turkish-Armenian architect Zakarya Mildanoğlu announced that the Turkish government had decided to rebuild Narekavank, among some other half-ruined or destroyed churches and monasteries in eastern Turkey.

[23] In September 2010, Mildanoğlu compiled a list of around 90 Armenian churches and monasteries in the Lake Van region including Narekavank.