Temple of Svetitskhoveli

Svetitskhoveteli Church for many years was the Main Georgian Orthodox Church, an object under the supervision of UNESCO.

Here was baptized the first Georgian king - Mirian. According to legend, the temple keeps the memory - Heaton of the Lord Jesus Christ. Saint Sidonia asked her brother, Rabbi Elioz, to bring her a piece of Christ from Jerusalem. On the day of Christ’s execution, Elioz bought the Lord’s chiton and brought it to Mtskhet. Sidonia pressed the chiton to her chest and died. At the place of burial of the Svet ogre, a mighty cedar, and later the first church in Georgia was built there.

In its original form, it was a wooden building that has not survived to our times. Later, in the 11th century, a new stone church, walls, frescoes, burials, icons, a font for baptism, a cloak of Ilya’s vice, have survived to this day.

Svetitskhoveli is located in Mtskheta, it is visible from anywhere in the city.