Mtskheta, located at the confluence of the Mtkvari and Aragvi rivers, served as the first royal capital of Kartli, known to the Romans as Iberia. A legend, predating the kingdom’s Christianisation by three centuries, is preserved in the medieval Georgian chronicles, the Kartlis Tskhovreba. This legend recounts that a Jewish man from Mtskheta, present at the Crucifixion, purchased Christ’s seamless tunic, the Chiton, from a Roman soldier and brought it back to Mtskheta. His sister, Sidonia, died upon embracing the garment and was subsequently buried clutching it. A cedar tree later grew from her grave.
When St Nino introduced Christianity to Kartli in the early fourth century, King Mirian commissioned a church to be built on this site. The cedar tree was felled for use as a pillar, but it proved impossible to raise. After Nino prayed through the night, an angel descended, and the column miraculously settled into place, blazing with light. The site, and the present cathedral constructed under Catholicos-Patriarch Melkisedek between 1010 and 1029, was named Svetitskhoveli, meaning ‘the Life-Giving Pillar’.
References
Eastmond, A. (1998) Royal Imagery in Medieval Georgia. University Park, PA: Penn State University Press
Foletti, I. and Thunø, E. (eds.) (2016) The Medieval South Caucasus: Artistic Cultures of Albania, Armenia and Georgia. Brno: Convivium Supplementum
Frankopan, P. (2018) The New Silk Roads: The Present and Future of the World. London: Bloomsbury Publishing
Khoshtaria, D. (2023) Medieval Georgian Churches: A Concise Overview of Architecture. Available at: https://www.academia.edu/103250488/Medieval_Georgian_Churches_A_Concise_Overview_of_Architecture (Accessed: 1 May 2026)
Khoshtaria, D. (2023) Medieval Georgian Churches: A Concise Overview of Architecture. Tbilisi: Artanuji Publishing
Mepisashvili, R. and Tsintsadze, V. (1979) The Arts of Ancient Georgia. London: Thames and Hudson
MacCulloch, D. (2009) A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years. London: Allen Lane