KIRGHIZ SCHOLARS HOPE TO FIND THE RELICS OF ST. MATTHEW IN MEDIEVAL CHURCH ON ISSYK KUL LAKE

Interfax-Religion, Russia
Sept 4 2006

Bishkek, September 4, Interfax – Kirghiz scholars have discovered a
medieval settlement and catacombs on Issyk Kul and hope to find there
the burial place of St. Matthew, said Academician Vladimir Ploskikh,
who leads an archeological expedition there.

He has reported that the unique historic monument, which the medieval
settlement and catacombs represent, has been discovered this summer
in the Zayachy Peninsula at the north-eastern cost of Issyk Kul Lake
in northern Kirghizia.

The scholar believes this construction with monastic cells may well
turn out to be the Armenian monastery where, as chronicles report,
the apostle might have been buried.

Dr. Ploskykh says some references to the church are made even in the
diary of famous traveler Semenov Tyan-Shansky; the monastery is also
marked at a Catalan map in Venice.

At the same time, the scholar says all the hypothesis about the
discovery of the monastery where St. Matthew was buried ‘still need
to be confirmed’.

‘The data discovered has to be processed. But if our assumptions
are justified Kirghizia will have a unique chance to join the world
religious culture and become a new route for pilgrims’, Ploskykh noted.