Church Urbnisi

The Urbnisi cathedral of Saint Stephen the Protomartyr (Georgian: ურბნისის წმიდა სტეფანე პირველმოწამის სახელობის საკათედრო ტაძარი, romanized: urbnisis ts'mida st'epane p'irvelmots'amis sakhelobis sak'atedro t'adzari), commonly known as the Sioni church of Urbnisi (ურბნისის სიონი, urbnisis sioni), is a Georgian Orthodox cathedral at the village of Urbnisi in Georgia's east-central Shida Kartli region. The church is a relatively large three-nave basilica, originally built in the 6th century and reconstructed in the 10th and 17th centuries. The church walls bear several inscriptions, some being among the oldest executed in the Georgian alphabet. The cathedral is inscribed on the list of Georgia's Immovable Cultural Monuments of National Significance.

The Urbnisi cathedral stands on the left bank of the Kura river in the eponymous village in the Kareli Municipality, Shida Kartli region, in the eastern part of the old settlement of Urbnisi where archaeological studies uncovered material from the Chalcolithic and the early Bronze Age to the 8th century AD.

The Urbnisi church is dedicated to Saint Stephen, a protomartyr of the 1st century. Following a medieval Georgian tradition of naming churches after particular places in the Holy Land, the cathedral also bears the name of Mount Zion at Jerusalem. A carved inscription in the north façade, in the early Georgian asomtavruli script, makes mention of the builders of the church—Konstanti and Father Mikel—but the text is undated: stylistic analysis of the architectural layout and paleographical features of the inscription suggests a date in the 5th or 6th century.

The Urbnisi cathedral was the seat of a Georgian Orthodox bishop bearing the title of Urbneli and known since at least the 8th century. In 1103, Urbnisi was one of the two locations of the landmark church council convened by King David IV of Georgia, the other being the nearby Ruisi cathedral.[3] Currently, Urbnisi and Ruisi are the two principal cathedrals in the Eparchy of Urbnisi and Ruisi of the Georgian Orthodox Church.