President attends re-consecration ceremony of Armenian Cathedral of St George in Tbilisi

President Serzh Sargsyan and Mrs. Rita Sargsyan attended today the re-consecration ceremony of one of Tbilisi’s oldest churches, Armenian Cathedral of St George, which was led by His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians. The ceremony was joined by Bishop Vazgen Mirzakhanyan, Primate of the Georgian Diocese, the donors of the church restoration program, by numerous guests and religious people of the Georgian Diocese, as well as by church benefactor Bidzina Ivanishvili, Georgia’s former prime minister, who was awarded by the Supreme Patriarch high decorations of the Armenian Apostolic Church together with the other benefactors.

The ceremony was followed by the opening of a memorial plaque bearing the names of the benefactors of the church reconstruction program.

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Additional information about the Cathedral of St George

The restoration project of the Cathedral of St George (XIII ct.) of the Georgian Diocese started in 2012, becoming one of the most important programs of the Initiative for the Development of Armenia (IDeA) and receiving the blessings of the Catholicos of All Armenians and the support of Georgian authorities.
The same year, the Foundation for the Reconstruction of the Cathedral of St. George was established with the aim of getting donations, managing financial resources, as well as of supervising the technical works to restore the church and its frescos.
During the church restoration works, both Armenian and Georgian specialists were engaged, including architect-restorer Anatoli Solomnishvili (who is also the author of the restoration projects of Avlabar’s St. Etchmiadzin Church (XVIII ct.)), restorer-builder Zurab Gachechiladze, the senior restorer of the RA Ministry of Culture, Arzhanik Hovhannisyan, head of the Research Center for Restoration of Monumental Painting, Otar Chakvetadze, head of the Technical Expertise Division of the Georgian Engineering Academy, as well as experts from the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin and the Matenadaran.
During the three-year restoration works, a close eye was kept on the fortification of the church, since underground waters posed a real danger to the church, wrecking the church foundation and undermining the brick wall.

During the works, the church foundation was fortified and replaced with a waterproofing foundation, a drainage system was installed, the walls and dome were reinforced, the external coating was removed and the church’s initial appearance with bricks was restored.

Special attention was paid to the restoration of the frescos and sacred images inside the Cathedral of St George. Its entrance and by-sacristy walls, arch niches and columns are decorated with the paintings of the Hovnatanians, Gevorg Bashinjaghian and unknown masters. The restoration works of frescos and sacred images were carried out by the employees of the Research Center for Restoration of Monumental Painting under the leadership of Arzhanik Hovhannisyan and with the consultative support of Fabrizio Iacobini, head of the Center for Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage of Florence.

The Cathedral of St George has been restored through charitable donations. The total cost of the restoration program amounts to 3.5 million dollars. The main donors of the program are the Vardanian family, Albert Avdolyan, Sergey Sarkisov and Rusudan Makhashvili, Danil Khachaturov, as well as Bidzina Ivanishvili.

The Cathedral of St George (or the Great Church of Berd) is one of the oldest churches in Tbilisi. It was one of the Armenian spiritual, cultural and enlightenment centers of medieval times. From 14 to 15 centuries, numerous manuscripts were created in the church school which are kept in the Matenadaran. The church has been repeatedly damaged by invasions and fires and has been restored.
The yard of the Cathedral of St George houses the tombs of Sayat-Nova, Gevorg Bashinjaghian, Mikhail Loris-Melikov, Arshak Ter-Gukasov, Ivan Lazarev and Boris Shelkovnikov.