Georgia’s historic Ishkhani complex will be restored

Rehabilitation work at the historical Georgian Ishkhani Cathedral complex, located on the southwestern Georgian province of Tao Klarjeti, now part of Turkey, has reportedly resumed.

Reconstruction of the three Cathedrals on the historically important site suspended earlier this year and only resumed recently, Georgian media reported.

Ishkhani is a ruined Christian monastery on the territory of modern Turkey in the Artvin province. It was one of the important spiritual centers in the Middle-Ages.

At this stage only the monument’s concrete ceiling and the stone floor were in place. Wooden materials had been erected in the temple, which appeared to be used as a scaffold for internal works.

As the Cathedral complex was located on Turkish soil, negotiations between the two nations were held to determine the future of the damaged monument. The two sides began discussing how to restore the site in 2005. Since then, the Patriarchate of Georgia said there were numerous challenges facing the renovation of the important Georgian site.

For the past ten years, Georgian experts have sounded alarm about the poor state of the Oshki and Ishkhani temples. Over the years bad weather had caused immense damage to the site and experts feared continued regular, heavy rain could cause the monument to fall into further disarray and then there would be nothing to save.

In 2007, talks with the Turkish side resumed and a tentative agreement was reached by spring 2008. At the time the sides agreed the restoration of three cathedrals – Oshki, Ishkhani and Khandzta – in the complex would take place in return for repair of Kvirike Mosque in Kobuleti, Ahmadiyya Mosque in Akhaltsikhe and reconstruction of Aziziye Mosque in Batumi on a site to be selected by the Georgian side.

The Georgian and Turkish sides began the latest negotiation on restoring the site in April 2013. The sides agreed that rehabilitation works of the Ishkhani Cathedral would resume.

At the site, only the large church and one of the smaller adjacent chapels were currently standing. The earliest mention of the monastery was discovered in The Life of Grigol Khandzteli, a Georgian manuscript dating back to 951 AD, which was now kept in Jerusalem.

In 1987, Turkey’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism registered Ishkhani as a national cultural monument and the site was granted a protected status.