Nekresi Monastery

In medieval Georgian literary tradition, beginnings of monasticism at Nekresi are associated with the 6th-century monk Abibos, known for Christian proselytizing and combating Zoroastrianism. The monastery was closed down shortly after the Imperial Russian takeover of the Georgian church in 1811. After a hiatus of nearly two centuries, the monastery became functional again in 2000. The Nekresi Monastery tops a wooded hillock known as Nazvrevi Gora (literally, "a hill of former vineyards") in the eastern portion of the Nekresi site, some 3.7 km east as the crow flies from the modern village of Shilda, Qvareli Municipality. It is a complex of buildings, including the three-church basilica of the Dormition of the Mother of God, a mortuary chapel—both dated to the 6th century, a centrally-planned church of the Archangel Michael built in the 8th or 9th century, and a bishop's palace of the 9th century, as well as a 12th-century refectory, a 16th-century defensive tower, and remains of storehouses and other accessory structures. The complex is inscribed on the list of the Immovable Cultural Monuments of National Significance of Georgia. The Nekresi Monastery was founded in the 6th century; an earlier dominant view that the first church of the complex was built on the place of a Zoroastrian shrine in the 4th century has been disproved by archaeological excavations, which found no evidence of any occupation on the hill earlier than the 6th century. That period saw an upsurge in monasticism in eastern Georgia, popularized by the Thirteen Assyrian Fathers, a group of monks who are credited by the medieval Georgian literary tradition with founding several monasteries across the country.