Metekhi Church
The Metekhi Church ( Georgian მეტეხის ეკლესია ) is a Georgian Orthodox church in the Georgian capital Tbilisi . It was built in the 13th century by King Dimitri II and stands on the site of the former residence of the Georgian kings above the steep bank of the Kura River.
The church stands in the earliest settlement area of Tbilisi. The place on the rock was considered particularly safe. The church was destroyed by Mongol invaders in 1235 and rebuilt in 1289. Its name comes from a battle of King Wachtang I Gorgassalis , who is said to have proclaimed at this point in the 5th century:
"Ak me mteri wteche."
"Here I killed the enemy."
This is said to have become the church name over the centuries.
The 24.5 meter high late medieval cross-domed church stands on an area of 20 × 16 meters. Its original shape has been preserved to this day. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the dome, the tambour , the barrel vault and various parts of the facade were restored with bricks. A gallery was added to the west of the church.
In the church is the tomb of Saint Shushanik , a noblewoman who was the wife of the ruler of Georgia in the 5th century and who refused to renounce Christianity in order to convert to the Zoroastrianism of the Persian conquerors. She died in prison and is venerated as a martyr by the Georgian Orthodox Church of the Apostles.
Originally the church building stood in the middle of the royal residence in Tbilisi. The Russian tsars converted the residence first into a powder chamber , then into a prison , in which the later dictator of the Soviet Union Joseph Stalin was also imprisoned. After 1921 it served the Bolsheviks as a prison for political opponents. It was demolished in 1937. Since then, the church has stood on a wide mountain plateau.
In the Soviet Union, the Metekhi Church was expropriated and used secularly. It served as a stage for a youth theater. In 1988 the building was returned to the Orthodox Church. The dissident and later Georgian President Swiad Gamsachurdia went on a hunger strike for the return of the sacred building .
In 1967 a monument to King Wachtang I Gorgassali was erected near the church as an equestrian monument for the founder of Tbilisi. It comes from the Georgian sculptor Elgudscha Amaschukeli , who also designed the monumental statue Kartlis Deda in Tbilisi.
literature
- ვახტანგ ბერიძე: თბილისის მეტეხის ტაძარი . მეცნიერება, თბილისი, 1969. (German: Wachtang Beridze: Tifliser Metekhi Church . Science, Tiflis, 1969)
Web links
Coordinates: 41 ° 41 ′ 24 ″ N , 44 ° 48 ′ 40 ″ E
