Tsilkani cathedral

Tsilkani cathedral of the Mother of God

წილკნის ღვთისმშობლის ტაძარი
Tsilkani cathedral.
41.949573°N 44.658064°E/41.949573; 44.658064(Tsilkani)
Location	Tsilkani,Mtskheta Municipality, Mtskheta-Mtianeti,Georgia
Type	Domed church

TheTsilkani cathedral of the Mother of God(Georgian:წილკნის ღვთისმშობლის ტაძარი,romanized:ts'ilk'nis ghvtismshoblis t'adzari) is aGeorgian Orthodoxchurch in the village ofTsilkani,Mtskheta Municipality,inGeorgia's easternregionofMtskheta-Mtianeti.Originally built in the 4th century, the church was repeatedly remodeled in the Middle Ages. The extant edifice is a domedcross-in-squaredesign, contained in a walled enclosure with corner towers. It is inscribed on the list of theImmovable Cultural Monuments of National Significance.

Location

The Tsilkani cathedral stands in the centre of the eponymous village—northwest of the ancient city ofMtskheta—on the left bank of the Narekvavi, a tributary of theAragvi River.The village, home to aLate Bronze Ageburial moundand other archaeological finds, is also notable for a 4th–5th-century Christiancrypt,with a Greek inscription on its wall.

History

Hodegetria of Tsilkani

The Tsilkani church is credited by the medieval Georgian chronicles toKing Bakar(r. c. 365–380), son ofMirian III,the first Christian king ofKartli—Iberiaof theClassicalsources. Originally ahall church,the cathedral was remade into a three-nave basilica in the 5th or 6th century and, eventually, reconstructed as a domed church in the 12th or 13th century. The church was further renovated in the 16th–17th century. The church was also associated in medieval Georgian tradition—elaborated in the hymns by the 13th-century cleric Arsen Bulmaisimisdze—with the monk Jesse fromAntiochwho came as part of theThirteen Assyrian Fathersin Kartli around 545. It is maintained that Jesse's tomb is still preserved in the church.The cathedral was the seat ofbishops of Tsilkani,first heard of in 506.

The cathedral was home to the veneratedVirgin Hodegetriaof Tsilkani, a 9th-century icon of the Virgin and the Child attended by the archangels. The icon was repainted and refurbished at the turn of the 12th century, but the faces painted in encaustictemperawere left untouched. In 1926, the icon was moved for preservation to theGeorgian National MuseuminTbilisi.

Layout

A tower with a belfry.

The extant church, measuring 28 × 24 m and built largely of dressed sandstone blocks, is a cross-in-square building, with a semicircular apse and a central dome held up on four free-standing piers. The base of the dome is pierced with 12 windows. The interior is additionally lit with 10 windows cut in the walls. The church has three entrances. To the south porch is attached a small hall church with a semicircular apse and two niches, connected via a doorway to the cathedral's south nave. The church bears remnants of the coarse wall paintings, dated from the 15th century to the 18th.

The cathedral is enclosed in a late-18th-century stone curtain wall, measuring 58 × 72 m. The wall is pierced by an arched brick gate on the southwest and a number of embrasures and contain rounded corner towers, one of which, on the southeast, is topped by a 19th-century hexagonal belfry.