Betania Church in Mtskheta-Mtianeti

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comments 5

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  alexandre mekhrishvili

  :: 17 June 2018 17:53:58

  One of the best Historical places of Georgia

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  Nino Tsulaia

  :: 03 June 2018 12:49:51

  Amazing and beautiful place!

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  David Tevzadze

  :: 18 December 2017 10:34:17

  The Betania Monastery of the Nativity of the Mother of God (Georgian: ბეთანიის ყოვლადწმინდა ღვთისმშობლის შობის მონასტერი) commonly known as Betania or Bethania (ბეთანია [bɛtʰania]) is a medieval Georgian Orthodox monastery in eastern Georgia, 16 km (9.9 mi) southwest of Tbilisi, the nation’s capital. It is a remarkable piece of architecture of the "Golden Age" of the Kingdom of Georgia, at the turn of the 11th and 12th centuries, and is notable for its wall paintings which include a group portrait of the contemporary Georgian monarchs. Betania is located in the isolated wooded valley of the Vere River, 16 km (9.9 mi) southwest of Tbilisi. The name of the monastery is derived from that of the village Bethany in Palestine recorded in the New Testament as the home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus, as well as that of Simon the Leper. The history of the monastery is poorly recorded in Georgian historical tradition. It was a familial abbey of the House of Orbeli. The donor image of Sumbat and Liparit Orbeli before the Mother of God appears on the south transept of the monastery. The Orbeli were temporarily dispossessed of their estates by the royal crown at the end of the 12th century, but their later offshoot, the Gostashabishvili family, appear to have been the monastery’s owners in early modern Georgia. A series of conflicts and foreign invasions that fill the history of Georgia left the monastery depopulated and half-ruined. It was restored, in the latter half of the 19th century, through the efforts of Hieromonk Spiridon Ketiladze who resigned as an abbot in 1922 and was succeeded by Hieromonk Ilia Pantsulaia. Both these monks were shot during the Soviet purges. Betania remained the only operating Georgian monastery, though unofficially, until 1963 when it also became defunct for the next 15 years. In 1978, the energetic Patriarch of Georgia Ilia II succeeded in obtaining permission from the Soviet authorities to reopen a monastery at Betania. In the 1990s, the cloister was refurnished and the local monastic community grew in size and influence.

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  Michael Kochiashvili

  :: 08 December 2017 17:57:06

  The Betania Monastery of the Nativity of the Mother of God commonly known as Betania or Bethania is a medieval Georgian Orthodox monastery in eastern Georgia.

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  Bacho Zarra

  :: 16 September 2017 16:26:59

  The Betania Monastery of the Nativity of the Mother of God (Georgian: ბეთანიის ყოვლადწმინდა ღვთისმშობლის შობის მონასტერი) commonly known as Betania or Bethania (ბეთანია [bɛtʰania]) is a medieval Georgian Orthodox monastery in eastern Georgia, 16 km (9.9 mi) southwest of Tbilisi, the nation’s capital. It is a remarkable piece of architecture of the "Golden Age" of the Kingdom of Georgia, at the turn of the 11th and 12th centuries, and is notable for its wall paintings which include a group portrait of the contemporary Georgian monarchs.