The Patriarchate of Georgia will lead the ongoing conservation works in western Georgia’s Gelati Monastery complex, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, with the financial support of the Culture Ministry, the Ministry announced on Friday.
The decision was made at a meeting held in the Georgian National Museum, which was attended by the representatives of the Patriarchate, the Culture Minister Thea Tsulukiani, architect-restorers, art experts, and the chair of the Parliamentary Committee on Culture Eliso Bolkvadze.
Tsulukiani said the representatives of the Patriarchate shared her initiative and the Patriarchate would lead the process of conservation, restoration and interventions of the complex, instead of the Ministry. She also pointed out the problems on which the Ministry had “actively” worked since her appointment as Minister of Culture and noted the Patriarchate would continue to “solve these problems”.
The “high-standard” scaffolding, purchased by the Ministry for ₾900,000 (about $341,616) will be provided “free of charge” to the Patriarchate, Tsulukiani noted. She added the sides had agreed to create a platform of discussion on the Gelati complex, which would be led by the Patriarchate and would include art experts and professionals.
Gelati was returned to the UNESCO List of World Heritage in 2017, after the monument had been entered in the organisation's List of World Heritage in Danger in 2010, following restoration works under the previous Government of Georgia that were initiated in defiance of UNESCO regulations and warnings on "irreversible interventions carried out on the site".
The 12th-century Monastery, located 11km north-east of the western hub city of Kutaisi, was originally inscribed in the World Heritage List in 1994, with UNESCO describing it as a "masterpiece of the Golden Age of mediaeval Georgia".
The initial construction of the main buildings of the complex was carried out in 1106, during the reign of King David IV of Georgia. Further additions were made to the monastery between the 12th-17th centuries.