Samtavro Monastery – UNESCO World Heritage

Once you pass through the monastery gates, you’ll be surrounded by cypress trees reaching up to the heavens, along with magnificent fir trees, maples, Brazilian dogwoods, yews, berberis, and Canadian spruce. The rose-lined lanes give way to Photinia bushes, which are especially fragrant in May, the “month of roses”. 

Samtavro Monastery was once a royal garden, and the nuns here still ensure that the yard is beautiful year-round.

The history of this church is directly connected to the history of the spread of Christianity in Georgia. It was here that the Cappadocian maiden Nino, who brought Christianity to Georgia, took shelter.

Later the Samtavro Monastery Complex was built here, which includes:

The main church –This building was built in the 11th century. The Christian king and queens of Georgia, Mirian and Nana, are buried in this church; 

St. Nino Church – also an 11th-century structure. According to historians, Nino lived here when she first arrived in Mtskheta. The interior of the church is painted with scenes of the life of St. Nino; 

The bell tower and wall – a 15th-16th-century building, and the wall, an 18th-century structure. Only a tower remains from the old wall, while the current wall is from the 19th century. 

Samtavro Church is the final resting place of our modern Georgian saint – Holy Father St. Gabriel.