The Surp Kevork Armenian Church was built in the Fevzipaşa neighborhood in 1669 after 83 Armenian families arrived in Çanakkale from Iran. The church, destroyed in 1691, was rebuilt in 1873 by order of Sultan Abdulaziz.
The building, which was inactive due to the immigration of the Armenian population in Çanakkale, opened as the Çanakkale Archeology Museum in 1934 and served as a museum until 1984. It was restored by the Ministry of Culture in 1984 and opened as the Namık Kemal Theater Hall.
In 1997 it was restored by the Ministry of Culture, organized as the Çanakkale Ethnography Museum in 2000 and relocated to the Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University in 2005.
During the restorations in 1997, the church was engraved with its inscription on the original cross.
Hrant Dink and Vagarsag Seropyan of the Armenian Patriarchate of Istanbul examined the church in August 2000 and made suggestions. Dink and Seropyan read the inscriptions on some sarcophagi and found that the name of the church was Surp Kevork and the school (now the Manfred Library) was Aramian.
Source: Okur Gezer