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northern facade reads: ‘The
hand of Arsukidze, slave of
God, may forgiveness be
his.’ The eastern façade
features a second
inscription indicating
Arsukidze’s death prior to
the cathedral’s first phase
of completion in 1029:
‘This holy church was built
by the hand of Thy
wretched ser vant,
Arukidze. May your soul
rest in peace, O Master.’
The 21st-century cathedral
in Tbilisi is the largest
architectural project of its
kind undertaken in
Georgian history, and its
position, sheer scale, and
deft architectural
vocabular y are an
expression not merely of
the centrality of Orthodox
faith in Georgian identity,
Figure 2. Arsukidze (?), Svetitskhoveli but of outright defiance
Cathedral, Mtskheta, 11th century and even a sense of
triumphalism articulated in
(image: author)
the smooth vertical lines of
honey-coloured stone. Its
architectural reference points are not copies of historic material per se, but
rather conscientiously revivalist in the spirit of European architectural
strategies for blending ancient and modern that sprang up from the 19th
century onwards.
In 2014, following the completion of the cathedral at Tbilisi and within
the wave of popular and highly prominent resurgence of religious expression
amongst Georgians, Mtskheta was awarded the status of ‘holy city’ by
Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia II, reinforcing the unique cultural history of

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