In the late spring of 2004 I had the opportunity to spend two weeks each in the Republics of Armenia and Georgia. The primary purpose for my visit to Armenia was to instruct a group of librarian-catalogers in some points of online cataloging; while my primary purpose in Georgia was to collect religious periodical literature. I was also on the lookout for religious material in Armenia. In both countries I was based in the capital city, Yerevan in Armenia and Tbilisi in Georgia, but also had opportunities to visit religious sites outside of the cities. Nerses Hayrapetyan, President of the Armenian Librarians' Union, knew of my interest in church history and arranged for visits to important sites. In Georgia I was accompanied by Prof. Stephen Rapp of Georgia [US] State University, a fellow traveler in Georgian Studies. Prof. Zaza Skhirtladze arranged many of our trips and drove us to many of the sites described.

This was my third visit to Georgia, the first for seven weeks in the summer of 1990 and the second for a week in the early fall of 2002. This was my first visit to Armenia. I can read both languages, but my spoken Georgian is much better than my spoken Armenian. I can also read and speak Russian, which was useful in filling in the language gaps on occasion.

Both countries have local, autocephalous churches ruled by a Catholicos. These churches have ancient histories during which time they have survived persecution by the Persian Zoroastrians, Muslim Arabs and Turks, and perhaps most severely at the hands of the Soviet authorities, during the seven decades when atheism was an important component of the official state ideology. Both churches have been burdened as the bearers of national identity and its survival; this is important to an understanding of their place in society today.

With all of these similarities, I was astonished at the different levels of visible religiosity between the two countries. Armenia struck me as much more secular in its outlook, while Georgia was much more visibly pious. A great percentage, 25-35% of each country's population lives in its capital city, so my impressions cover a fair percentage of each country's population.

Tbilisi is a city decorated with its churches, now dominated by the recently consecrated Cathedral of the Holy Trinity [1-5] on Prophet [called St. in Orthodoxy] Elijah's Hill, across the Mtkvari River from the ancient Sioni Cathedral. Dozens of old churches have been renovated, with new fresco programs and patched cracks, and dozens more have been built since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. This was a process that had begun before 1990, but it has proceeded at an accelerated pace since then. New churches continue under construction. While some renovation and construction has occurred in Yerevan over the past decade and a half of independence, and this dominated by the Church of the Holy Illuminator St. Gregory near Republic Square, church domes are much scarcer in the landscape.

The following are descriptions and impressions from several places and events in Georgia and Armenia.

Church of St. John the Evangelist

The hotel at which I stayed the two weeks in Yerevan was not far from the Church of St. John the Evangelist. I attended the Divine Liturgy [Batarak] on the Sunday after the Feast of the Ascension. The church had some pews but only for about 20% of the congregation that continued to grow throughout the liturgy. The liturgy proper began around 10 am after a penitential service. The opening procession around the inside of the church was accompanied with what I could only call frenzied attempts to ensure that certain sacred items in the procession, crosses and banners, were touched along the way. This surprised me as I had not seen such behavior in Armenian churches in the United States. Of course, pews largely prohibit such activity in these churches.

The priests and his sacred ministers chanted the liturgy in fine form and the thurifer was in constant motion throughout. The priest gave a strong homily concerning the Ascension of Christ and what that meant for the believer sanctified in Christ. The liturgy had lasted for more than two hours when I left at the communion of the faithful.

St. Gregory the Illuminator

This vast church was built after the fall of the Soviet Union and it looms on a small hill near Republic Square. It is seriously plain even when compared to other Armenian church buildings and has the sense that it needs a generation of prayers said within it in order further to consecrate it. There was an evening service in progress while I was there. Few in attendance. I didn't find the candle stands; it turned out they were in the basement.

Kecharis

Much of the traffic at churches in Armenia during my two weeks in that country was represented by graduating high school students who, as a part of their graduation week ritual, were making their way in cars and busses to churches to light candles and pray for their futures. The Kecharis monastery church, originally built in the early twelfth century, in Dzakhkadzor, an important winter sports area, was a flurry of activity when my traveling companions and I reached that site. Having now seen a picture of this complex from the late Soviet period, I realize what an extensive rebuilding project it has been. The students, having lit their candles, were quickly back in their cars and off to their next party. In the ensuing quiet one of the local priests took notice of us. He gave us a demonstration of the acoustics of the large narthex and invited us all into the sacristy to bestow upon us all a blessing; not at all concerned with checking out our "credentials," but clearly believing that grace must be shared, did so. We also walked over to the Church of the Holy Resurrection a small church about 300 meters away from the main complex.

Geghard

Students and many others were swarming about the monastery complex during our visit at Geghard. [6-7] [Many of these structures are built back into the side of a cliff. This complex is closer to Yerevan, and is part of the tour that includes a rebuilt pre-Christian structure at Garni. [8-9] Geghard's popularity is ratified by the presence of vendors who line the driveway up the hill to the monastery. Candles were being lit for future success and it appeared that one could also purchase a lamb to sacrifice, depending upon one's financial status. The lamb was still among the living when we left the grounds [10].

There is very little decoration inside of the church, leaving the impression that much was removed and that there has been insufficient time and money to redecorate this important monastic site in a more thorough manner.

Echmiadzin

We visited the main center of the Armenian Apostolic Church on a warm sunny day when the twin mountains of Ararat loomed on the horizon. [11] The Catholicos himself was visiting his South American flock at the time. We were, however, warmly greeted at the theological center newly established in the name of the late Catholicos Karekin I who died in the summer of 1999.

Curiously one of my Armenian library colleagues, as we stood at the graves of Karekin I [12] and Vasken I [13], lamented their passing with a negative assessment of the current occupant of the See of Echmiadzin. We received a tour about the main cathedral which had the sort of diesel aroma shared by many of the churches in Armenia [too much paraffin in the candles]. [14] The tour guide seemed to be of an older Intourist generation. We saw some of the artifacts that belonged to the cathedral as well as the Zoroastrian fire altar that was discovered during excavations beneath the church.

Khor Virap

Leaving the holy city of Echmiadzin we proceeded along the deeply pitted road that wound its way to the monastery church of Khor Virap.[15] This church is located on a small hill in the midst of the plain before the double mountain of Ararat.[16] It is close to the Armenia-Turkey border – we could see the several lines of warning that marked the transition. This meant also that Ararat was less than twenty kilometers away and on this clear day its snow-capped peaks dominated the scene in a way that photographs are unable to capture.

The church itself is built on the site where St. Gregory the Illuminator was to have spent many years as the prisoner of Trdat III, the king who, eventually being cured of his zoomorphic fantasies, converted to Christianity. The pit is accessed by a ladder that goes down about twenty meters; the pit itself with a rather high ceiling and about eight meters across. The claustrophobia alone would have drive most people mad in short order.

Pentecost

The day after my arrival in Tbilisi I decided to go to the Church of St. David the Builder located on the campus of Tbilisi State University. During my visit in 2002 I had been able to spend some time in this newly built church and contemplate its rich fresco program of saints and Biblical scenes. On this particular important feast day, however, I was never able to squeeze my way into the church itself. A speaker system crackled with the singing from within. Candle stands were around the outside of the building for the faithful who could not make their way into the church. Only those carrying small children and older women carrying flowers for the festival were shoehorned into the building.

Blue Monastery

Two Orthodox churches [17] are located side by side not far from the center of Tbilisi down a side street. One of them is a Russian church, the other, named for the color of its domes is called the Blue Monastery. We found ourselves there in the middle of the afternoon of 1 June, the day when Georgians commemorate the arrival of St. Nino, Equal to the Apostles and Illuminator of the Georgians, into Georgian territory. It is one of the several particularly auspicious days for baptisms in Georgia; St. Nino herself was to have baptized some of the royal family in the old capital of Mcxeta as well as a number of people in Kaxeti, i.e. Eastern Georgia.

And, so, as we arrived we noticed that we had come upon the baptism of a small girl, perhaps seven years of age. She was accompanied by a small group of women. We arrived in time to see the baptizand, barefoot and on her tippy-toes, turn to the west with her mother? godmother ? and renounce Satan, all his angels, and all of his works. When this had been accomplished she was baptized and the appropriate procession around the font was made.

This extraordinarily moving scene was not ruined even by the distraction of the priest-celebrant who kept looking past the little girl, through the door, and into the courtyard, as though waiting for someone else to appear. Sure enough, as the ceremony for the little girl was drawing to its conclusion the next family appeared: an obviously well-heeled group that might have been able to pay a more substantial stipend for the sacrament.

Monastery of St. John the Baptist

One of our excursions took us into the wilderness of the David Gareja region, named after one of the Syrian fathers who arrived in Georgia in the 5th-6th centuries and helped to establish Georgian monasticism. This wilderness is an unexpected dry part of Georgia, to the southeast of Tbilisi and bordering on Azerbaijan. The last of the spring green was on the verge of drying up in early June when we made our trip.

The area is not far from the capital, but the road is rough and winding. One drives over the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline en route and through the outskirts of the rusted industrial city of Rustavi; even past a village of resettled Svans from the mountainous northwest of Georgia who have erected their traditional towers. The winding route also takes one past an notorious Soviet encampment. This outpost early caught the attention of Georgian dissidents who complained bitterly in the 1970s that shells were being exploded in the midst of ancient and irreplaceable monastic buildings.

One of those was the Monastery of St. John the Baptist [18] that has, since the Soviet downfall, come back into operation. It is located in the side of a cliff, with most of the buildings hewn out of the rock [19]: refectory, church [20-22], and monk cells [23-24]. A new visitors' building was being constructed [25]. It was an incredibly clear day and I sat for a time on the bench next to a set of bells [26] imagining the caravan trade that might have been visible in medieval times snaking its way through the valleys toward Tbilisi. [Speaking of snaking: we were warned to be very wary of the deadly poisonous black snakes that inhabited the territory. On a previous visit made by my traveling companion, Steve Rapp, one of the monks had proudly shown his pet snake.]

We arrived at about 10:30 in the morning, and were almost immediately invited through a door in the cliff into the refectory for a festival meal. When operating normally an Orthodox monastery is a place of profound and sincere hospitality. It was also the Feast of SS. Helena and Constantine, important to any church related to the Great Church of Constantinople. So we sat at table (visitors and about eight monks): steaming bowls of boiled potatoes, bean soup, bread, herbs; and certainly for the day, if not for the welcome of guests from far away, the abbot poured from a cola bottle what turned out to be red wine.

Our tour included the church with fresco walls badly damaged and covered with all manner of graffiti, yet clearly a hallowed place for worship. Side chapels were also hewn from the rock of the cliff. We did some climbing about [I some less than the others.] We went past the monks cells higher up in the cliff – only one with a door [the abbot's?] and around to the back and gently sloping side where beehives [27] for honey were placed and the cell of St. Serapion [28] was located. We could also see the grooves made in the rock that enabled the scarce rainwater to flow where it might be collected.

David Gareja Monastery – Udabno

After visiting the St. John the Baptist Monastery we drove further into the wilderness to the complex associated with David Gareja himself. This is located in Udabno, appropriately meaning "wilderness." This complex is again active and a pilgrimage site; we encountered a number of old Soviet-era buses on the narrow road to Udabno. The old weather worn caves that have been occupied since the sixth century are an important part of this complex. [29] Much reconstruction has occurred at this site since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Shio Mghvimeli Monastery

This monastery [30] is located to the north and west of Tbilisi; turning west at Mcxeta and proceeding along a winding road full of potholes, fields of wild flowers [31], cattle resting in open pastures [32], and views of the Mtkvari River to the south of which were verdant hills often topped with the shrine churches that cover Georgia again [33-34]. One such shrine church, St. Barbara's [35] is located overlooking Mcxeta [36] and was being more carefully repaired.

The monastery named for St. Shio of the Caves is another of the establishments of the Syrian fathers. Common buildings are surrounded by cliffs in which monks would live as semi-hermits in small caves. [37] Many dozens of people, by car and bus, were making their way to this monastery on the Sunday we visited.

In contrast to the hospitable welcomes we received at St. John the Baptist Monastery in the Gareja wilderness and later at the monastery in Bodbe, we were deliberated herded off some of the holier sites within the common buildings; some of these were, in any event, roped off to prevent the stray infidel from coming near. It was a lesson in how some of the Georgian Orthodox possess a fanaticism that is more concerned about maintaining purity, rather than showing the faith by examples of hospitality and welcome.

Mcxeta

We traveled twice to Mcxeta, staying for a longer period the second time and visiting Sveticxoveli [Church of the Living Pillar], the Antakya monastery, and Samtavro. For those who believe that there are numinous places on the earth where the sacred pours forth in greater abundance Mcxeta is a must visit. Christians have worshipped here since at least the early fourth century when St. Nino arrived to bide her time living as a hermit near the royal palaces. Jews predate Christians here by several centuries and Persian and local gods also had significant cults at this location at the confluence of the Aragvi and Mtkvari Rivers.

Sveticxoveli, an eleventh century structure, is the third building on its site, where Christian structures of one sort or another date to the fourth century. It is a large structure with little adornment on the outside and signs of a faded glory within that is only now being restored. It was the main cathedral of the Catholicos-Patriarch for centuries; many of them are buried here. The worn floor stones bear witness to the millions of feet that have walked and shuffled through this immense structure.

Antakya [38] is a small church on the grounds of a small woman's monastery and quite near the confluence of the rivers. The church has newly painted a bright frescoes [39] [not to the liking of our guide Zaza Skhirtladze, an art historian who teaches at Tbilisi State University]. Hearing a distinct "cuckoo" that counted more than the hour we realized that there were cuckoo birds living amidst the various poultry inhabiting the grounds.

Samtavro is the site of the royal church, long since given over to another woman's monastery. Here are buried the original Christian royal couple, Mirian and Nana, converts of St. Nino. The grounds were overrun by busloads and carloads of pilgrims, some of whom were interested in the newly restored and open Samtavro Church, but most of whom were interested in the grave of a Monk Gabriel buried to the north of the church. He died in 1995 and has become an object of veneration for many factions of the Orthodox in Georgia. On this day people were bringing bottles of water and oil to set near the grave in order that the charism of the monk might be transferred. Others were scooping up soil from the top of the grave. A nun was sitting at the grave, likely one of those whose task was to replenish the soil. She scolded people whom she thought were carrying away too much of the sanctified soil; her scolding fell on deaf ears.

Holy Trinity Cathedral

The first thing that one can say about the Holy Trinity Cathedral [see 1-5] in Tbilisi is that it is very large. Situated upon St. Elias' Hill opposite the Sioni Cathedral, it will dominate the cityscape for generations to come. Because our major contact in Georgia, Prof. Zaza Skhirtladze, is a consultant for the fresco program in Holy Trinity, we were able to go into the construction site with him and take a good look at the work in progress.

The site was a beehive of activity as the date for the consecration of the cathedral had been set for November and no small amount of work remained to be done. The design of the cathedral is in the traditional Georgian style with its central dome reaching about the crossing of nave and transepts. A stone facade was being place over the inner structure of walls and pillars and stone masons of all sorts were cutting, polishing, carving and hauling stones around the grounds. Stone dust filled the air inside and outside. A number of individuals were working in the sanctuary. Cranes were also in evidence as stone was hauled up the sides of the church. We noticed many people working at various levels from the bottom to the top.

From the evidence of many articles in religious and secular publications, it was clear that the new Holy Trinity Cathedral was being billed as a symbol of unity for all of the Georgian people; with the idea that the national culture was very closely tied together with its Christian Orthodoxy.

Bodbe

Near the end of our stay in the Republic of Georgia we were driven to Bodbe, most important historically as being the site of St. Nino's grave. We stopped along the way at Ninocminda, the site of a walled compound that includes an earthquake ruined cathedral [40-43], a bishop's residence, a women's monastery, a small chapel attached to the ruins, and now a small gift shop. The walls of the church surrounding the main altar were covered with the soot of candles that had been pressed onto the walls.

We briefly met with the bishop with whom we spoke about our Nino project. (Le Museon is publishing our translation and commentary on the earliest extant Georgian text of the Nino story.) There was also a pack of boys playing within the walls and they were quite interested in us; [44] Americans speaking any Georgian are still a fairly rare commodity even this close to Tbilisi. They were also eager to get a glimpse of our digital cameras. They knew that they could expect to see themselves in the camera's reviewing mode directly after the picture was taken.

As we traveled along the main road to Bodbe [this road in fairly good condition], we saw many of the small shrine churches that have been rebuilt on the surrounding hills. As Tbilisi is decorated with churches, so the countryside is decorated with these shrines by the dozens.

Bodbe itself was alive with pilgrims and with much work around the monastery grounds. After venerating the tomb of St. Nino inside the cathedral we started down the path to St. Nino's spring. It is a bit of a hike, especially, the return up the hill. The spring water is fed into the church [45] named after Nino's parents, Zebulon and Susannah and dozens of pilgrims, [46] mainly young people were taking advantage of the water, often just walking into the cistern in the church and immersing themselves in these holiest of waters.

We paused to catch our breath once we reached the top again and to enjoy the far scenery. Bodbe is located near the top of the southern rim that overlooks the Kaxetian plain in Eastern Georgia. This exceptionally fertile plain is flanked on its north by the Caucasus Mountains, the snow-covered peaks of which we could almost see emerging from their cloudy shroud. [47]

We were treated to the nuns' hospitality and served lunch. It was a vegetarian repast and Mother Theodora, the superior of the monastery, herself fasting in anticipation of the Feast of SS. Peter and Paul, prayed with us at the beginning and end of the meal, but retired during it. We spoke briefly after lunch with Mother Theodora about various things and was adamant that we not judge the entire Georgian Orthodox Church by the actions of its fanatics.

Bishop Malkhaz Songhulashvili

On the last Friday of my stay in Tbilisi I had the opportunity to meet with Bishop Malkhaz Soghulashvili the head of the Evangelical Baptist Church in Georgia. He is a formidable presence beyond his purple cassock and a long grey beard that could compete with that of any Orthodox bishop. [48] Bishop Malkhaz speaks excellent English (having studied in England) and we had a conversation beginning during the ride from the building where we were staying to the Baptist building. It was the same that I remembered visiting in 1990. Sadly the four language sign was nowhere to be found (Georgian, Russian, Ossetian, and Armenian), no doubt a victim of ethnic turmoil in post-Soviet Georgia.

We talked for some time in the bishop's cramped office. I never did get to ask him about the thurible on his desk, but we did speak directly about the persecution, official and otherwise, experienced by the Baptist Church in Georgia. Bishop Malkhaz expressed relief that the notorious Fr. Basil had been tried and convicted for his role in the violent suppression of the non-Orthodox. Malkhaz was still fearful, however, of the "official" Orthodox, some of the Patriarch's own priests who were also willing to engage in the persecution of Baptists and other non-Orthodox. The situation was especially troublesome outside of the city and in rural areas where local officials could still do their mischief, even as in Soviet times. The bishop gave the impression that he and his flock were constantly sitting on tenterhooks and that progress made since the Rose Revolution might be reversed quickly and at any moment.

In Tbilisi we were also able to get pictures of the local mosque from the outside [49-50] and of the inside of the main Tbilisi synagogue. [51] The mosque is said to serve both Shi'a and Sunni communities. The synagogue represents what is now a remnant of the Georgian Jewish community, most of which has now emigrated from Georgia to Israel.

Two hours to the north of Tbilisi we visited the compound at Anania [52-55]. This is an early "modern" fortress church connected with a refuge of kings from the Turks and Persians who dominated Georgian lands for several centuries. It is next to the Aragvi River that eventually joins the Mtkvari at Mcxeta.

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