Gelati Monastery
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How it came to be
In 1106 King David IV the Builder began building Gelati on a wooded hill above the Tskaltsitela River, near his capital Kutaisi. The main church was completed in 1130 under his son and successor Demetre I. More churches were added in the 13th and early 14th centuries.
David founded an academy at the monastery and gathered scholars there, among them Ioane Petritsi, known for his commentaries on Proclus, and Arsen Ikaltoeli, whose Dogmatikon shows the influence of Aristotle. The apse of the main church keeps a 12th-century mosaic of the Virgin and Child with archangels, and the walls carry more than 40 portraits of kings, queens and high clerics.
As a royal monastery Gelati held wide lands and icons, and David IV was buried here. It was inscribed in 1994 and placed on the danger list in 2010, then removed from it in 2017.
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