With the blessing of the Rector of the Tbilisi Theological Academy and Seminary, Protosyngellos Giorgi Zviadadze, and organized by the Dean’s Office of the Faculty of Christian Art History and Theory, the final lecture-seminar of the academic year was held. The event took place at several culturally and historically significant sites in Kakheti. During the seminar, students deepened their theoretical knowledge of temple architecture and wall painting by studying and observing material cultural monuments on site.
Future art historians visited the Ninotsminda complex, located in the village of Ninotsminda in the Sagarejo region. They studied and discussed in detail the main structure of the complex, the Church of Saint Nino, built in the third quarter of the 6th century. According to tradition, Saint Nino rested at this very site, and the church was later erected in her honor.
With the guidance of their teachers, the students identified traces of reconstructions the temple underwent at various times - in the 9th–11th, 13th–14th, and 16th centuries. An inscription on the gate reveals that the temple was renovated in 1671 by the Bishop of Ninotsminda, Nikoloz Andronikashvili.
The students visited the late medieval Church of Saints Peter and Paul in Sagarejo, the Bodbe Monastery Complex, and the Sighnaghi Historical Museum. During their visit to the Sighnaghi Museum, they found the new exhibition dedicated to Mose Toidze, along with paintings by Niko Pirosmani - temporarily transferred from the Mirzaani Museum - particularly impressive and meaningful.
This event once again confirmed that such external lectures, seminars, and discussions carry great educational and cognitive content and emotional charge for students. Through the narration of art history teachers, Asmat Okropiridze and Rusudan Vashalomidze, our future art historians received complete, exhaustive, and visually confirmed information about the most important monuments of our past heritage.
