Tiri Monastery

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Tiri Monastery
თირის მონასტერი
Tiri Monastery as of 2013
Map
42°16′55″N 43°55′44″E / 42.281908°N 43.928965°E / 42.281908; 43.928965 (Tiri)
LocationMonasteri, Kurta Municipality, Shida Kartli, Georgia / Tskhinvali District, South Ossetia
TypeHall church

The Tiri monastery (Georgian: თირის მონასტერი, romanized: tiris monast'eri) is a 13th-century church near Tskhinvali in what is now the disputed territory of South Ossetia. Built as a Georgian Orthodox monastery in a hall church plan, it bears medieval frescoes and Georgian inscriptions. After the 2008 Russo-Georgian War, the Georgians lost access to the monastery. In 2015, the church building was subjected to maintenance works which infringed on authenticity and partially damaged the frescoes, leading to a controversy in Tskhinvali and protests from Georgia. The monastery is inscribed on the list of Georgia's Immovable Cultural Monuments of National Significance.[1]

Architecture

The Tiri monastery is located near the village of Monasteri, in the valley of Tiri, a tributary of the Greater Liakhvi River, 9 km northwest of Tskhinvali. The monastery consists of the church of the Nativity of the Theotokos, a bell-tower, and the ruins of a refectory, rock-cut cells, a circuit wall, and other accessory structures. They are mostly built of dressed basalt blocks, with the additional use of brick and cobblestone.[2]

The church of the Nativity of the Theotokos, measuring 15.7 × 8.8 m., is dated to the latter half of the 13th century. It is built as a rectangular hall church with an apse of the sanctuary separated from the nave by a contemporaneous five-arched iconostasis, which has lost its original appearance and has then been somewhat haphazardly reassembled. The sanctuary bears the surviving fragments of the 14th–15th century frescoes. In the 1420s, the church was expanded with a now-ruined porch and an eukterion. The north annex, a crypt of the noble family of Tavkhelidze, was added in the 1480s. The façades are adorned with decorative stone carvings. A two-storey bell-tower was constructed adjacent to the west side of the church at the end of the 14th century by the Tavkhelidze, who owned the monastery. In the 16th century Tiri passed to the princes Taktakidze, who built a family crypt at the northeast end of the church in 1682.[2]

Inscriptions

A 14th-century Georgian inscription on the bell-tower.

Three stone inscriptions in Georgian survive on the outer walls of the monastery: two on the north and south annexes of the church, respectively, and one on the bell-tower.[2] The latter inscription, undated but probably made at the end of the 14th century in the medieval Georgian asomtavruli script, is placed on an architrave stone on the east door of the bell-tower, mentioning members of the Tavkhelisdze family: Siaosh, Rati, Asat, and Machabel. The inscription on the west wall of the south annex, a small chapel, in asomtavruli and also undated, commemorates the certain treasurer Khela and Bevroz Makhatlishvili. The third text, dated to 1682 and is inscribed in the north crypt of the church in mkhedruli, attributes the structure to the members of the Taktakidze family: the bishop Phillip of Ruisi, Ardashel, and Elizbar.[2][3]

There is also a barely discernible two-line asomtavruli inscription in the interior of the eukterion, making mention of the bishop Phillip.[3] A marble tombstone in front of the iconostasis carries a mkhedruli text, arranged in twelve lines, which indicates that buried here is Rostom (died 1689), a son of the prince royal Vakhtang of Kartli.[3] Next to this tombstone was that of Erekle, son of Prince Giorgi Machabeli, who died fighting under the Georgian king Erekle II at Erivan in 1777. These epitaphs were first published by the French student of the Caucasian antiquities, Marie-Félicité Brosset, in 1850.[4]

History

Tiri Monastery. A photo from the book by Countess Uvarova, 1894.

The Tiri monastery is mentioned in several Georgian historical documents from the 15th to the 18th century.[2] Prince Vakhushti, a Georgian scholar writing about 1745, reports that west of the Achabeti fortress, "on a hill, there is the Tiri monastery, without a dome, but beautifully built, in a pleasant place. An abbot sits there."[5] After the Russian takeover of Georgia, the monastery was abolished and Tiri was converted to a parish church in 1811.[6]

During the August 2008 Russo-Georgian War, the area where the monastery is located fell under the control of Russian and South Ossetian forces. As a result, the Georgian clergy and parish lost access to the Tiri church. In the immediate aftermath of the hostilities, a 19 August 2008 UNOSAT satellite image reported no visible damage to the church.[7] The convent continued to function intermittently until being dissolved in 2010. In July 2015, the monastery was subjected to a "repair" process in which part of the frescoes were whitewashed or damaged; the floor in the bell-tower was covered with concrete, and a new wall was built to encircle the church. The South Ossetian authorities claimed ignorance and ordered the works to be suspended. Georgia's Ministry of Culture expressed concerns regarding "uncontrolled activities" at cultural monuments in breakaway Abkhazia and South Ossetia.[8] In 2016, the Permanent Mission of Georgia to the United Nations Office reported to the UN Special Rapporteur in the Field of cultural rights that the Tiri Monastery required an immediate intervention in order to prevent further damage from humidity and water infiltration.[9]

External links

References

  1. ^ "List of Immovable Cultural Monuments" (PDF) (in Georgian). National Agency for Cultural Heritage Preservation of Georgia. Retrieved 25 July 2019.
  2. ^ a b c d e Gamkrelidze, Gela; Mindorashvili, Davit; Bragvadze, Zurab; Kvatsadze, Marine, eds. (2013). "თირი [Tiri]". ქართლის ცხოვრების ტოპოარქეოლოგიური ლექსიკონი [Topoarchaeological dictionary of Kartlis tskhovreba (The history of Georgia)] (PDF) (in Georgian). Tbilisi: Georgian National Museum. pp. 248–249. ISBN 978-9941-15-896-4.
  3. ^ a b c Andghuladze, Nugzar (1969). "თირის მონასტრის წარწერები" [Inscriptions at the Tiri monastery]. Matsne (in Georgian). 6 (51): 195–209.
  4. ^ Brosset, Marie-Félicité (1850). Rapports sur un voyage archéologique dans la Géorgie et dans l'Arménie [Report of archaeological voyages in Georgia and Armenia] (in French). St.-Petersbourg: Imprimerie de l'Académie Impériale des Sciences. pp. 60–62.
  5. ^ Wakhoucht, Tsarévitch (1842). Brosset, Marie-Félicité (ed.). ღეოღრაჶიული აღწერა საქართველოჲსა. Description géographique de la Géorgie [Description of the Kingdom of Georgia] (in Georgian and French). S.-Pétersbourg: A la typographie de l'Academie Impériale des Sciences. pp. 254–255.
  6. ^ Uvarova, Prasoviya S. (1894). "Христианские памятники [Christian monuments]". Материалы по археологии Кавказа. Вып. IV [Materials for the Archaeology of the Caucasus, Vol. 4] (in Russian). Moscow. p. 175.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  7. ^ "Satellite Damage Assessment for Cultural Heritage Monuments, South Ossetia, Georgia - Damage Assessment with WorldView-1 Satellite Imagery Recorded on 19 August 2008" (PDF). UNITAR's Operational Satellite Applications Programme — UNOSAT. 11 September 2008. Retrieved 6 August 2019.
  8. ^ "Officials confirm damage to Georgian Tiri monastery in occupied territory". Agenda.ge. 16 July 2015. Retrieved 6 August 2019.
  9. ^ "The State of Georgian Cultural Heritage in the occupied Georgian regions ofAbkhazia and Tskhinvali region/South Ossetia" (PDF). Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. 10 June 2016. pp. 3–4. Retrieved 6 August 2019.
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