Tbilisi Sioni Cathedral

The Sioni Cathedral (Georgian სიონის ეკლესია ) is a church building in the Georgian capital Tbilisi. It was built in 575-639. She is considered one of the holiest sites of Georgian Orthodoxy.

By 2004, the Cathedral, the seat of the Patriarch of the Georgian Orthodox Church of the Apostles and Archbishop of Mtskheta -Tbilisi, Ilia II was It was named after Mount Zion in Jerusalem, and is dedicated to Virgin Mary.

Of the original church building is on ground level after several destructions and reconstructions nothing remains. Today's yellow Tuffsteinbau the church dates from the 17th to the 19th century. In the 12th century the church had changed their appearance after reconstruction: The floor plan - an inscribed cross with two free-standing pillars, an extended western arm of the cross and a projecting apse - equivalent since the main church of Gelati Monastery from the 12th century and the Church of the Virgin Mary in Schiomgwime Monastery.

1425 sacred building was supplemented by a freestanding three-story bell tower. It was destroyed in 1795 and rebuilt in 1939. 1812, a further three-story bell tower in classic Russian design was built on the opposite side of the street.

Since the early 14th century, the church houses several precious relics: These include the skull of the Apostle Thomas and the vines of the Holy Cross Nino, one of the apostles equated young woman who brought Christianity to Georgia in the early 4th century. You are in shrines, which are housed in the Hauptikonostase the church. The walls are frescoes by the Russian artist Grigory Gagarin, who painted over 1850-1860 older frescoes.

On April 12, 1802, the church became the political scene. After the annexation of Georgia by Russia, the Russian General Carl Heinrich Knorring forced the Georgian aristocracy and clergy gathered there by force of arms to the oath of allegiance to the Russian imperial crown. Dignitaries who disagreed were arrested on the spot by soldiers.

There are also in the Georgian Bolnisi, in Ateni, on the Georgian Military Highway and in Rustavi Sioni Church. The in Bolnisi dates from the 5th century, was built only Sioni 2000-2011 in Ateni from the 11th century, in Rustavi.

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