Saint Gevorg of Mughni Church, Armenian church building in Old Town, Tbilisi, Georgia.
Saint Gevorg of Mughni Church is an Armenian church in the Old Town with a cross-shaped plan supported by four freestanding pillars and built from brick. The rectangular outer wall encloses the central space and defines the building's distinctive character.
The church is first documented in 1356, though other sources give 1537; in 1763 it belonged to Akhpat Monastery. A bell tower was added in 1789, as a Georgian inscription found during 1900 restoration records. Persian troops sacked it in 1795, and the priest Grigory Ter-Shmavonyan saved some of its treasures. It was rebuilt in 1756 and its dome collapsed in 2009.
The church is named for Mughni, the Armenian village whose monastery held relics of Saint George; it also bore the name of the Mother of God 'Who Fulfils Wishes'. In the tsarist era the Armenian Women's Charitable Society of Tiflis met on its grounds, and members of the Bebutov family were buried from here.
The church stands at 6 Beglar Akhospireli Street in the Old Town, but it is a ruin: the dome fell in 2009 and the building was declared unsafe in 1990. There is no restoration programme; Georgian authorities refused to hand the building to the Armenian Apostolic Church. View the collapsed dome and cracked walls from the street.
In 1900, restoration work uncovered a stone inscribed in Georgian: "This bell tower was built by me — daughter of Zurab Ter-Shmavonyants, wife of the magistrate Zurab, the sinner Esther, in 1789." The bell tower itself was added in 1789, and the stone records its donor.
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