Bishops and archbishops of Bolnisi

Bolnisi Sioni Cathedral, the oldest extant church building in Georgia and the seat of the bishops of Bolnisi

Bolnisi is a city in the country of Georgia, the capital of Bolnisi district, which has long been the seat of either a bishop or an archbishop.

Bolnisi has been a center of Georgian Christianity since early Christian times, being the site of an early and important monastery.[1] The Bolnisi Cathedral was built in 478–493 under the rule of Vakhtang I of Iberia[2] and is the source of the Bolnisi cross, which came to be a national symbol of Georgia.

In 2009, the Bishop of Bolnisi was summoned to Tbilisi and advised to see to it that the large number of crosses which had been erected around Muslim areas of Bolnisi as a provocation were removed, which he was partly but not entirely successful in doing.[3]

  1. ^ Mahe, J. P.; Thomson, R. L. (1997). From Byzantium to Iran: Armenian Studies in Honour of Nina G. Garsoian. Occasional Papers and Proceedings (Scholars Press). Peeters Publishers. p. 142. ISBN 978-0788501524.
  2. ^ Nutsubidze, Tamar; Horn, Cornelia B.; Ostrovsky, Alexey, eds. (2014). Georgian Christian Thought and Its Cultural Context: Memorial Volume for the 125th Anniversary of Shalva Nutsubidze (1888-1969). Texts and Studies in Eastern Christianity. Brill Academic Publisher. p. 42. ISBN 978-9004263376. Retrieved March 8, 2015.
  3. ^ Country Reports on Human Rights Practice for 2009. Vol. II. United States Government Printing Office. 2012. p. 1498. Retrieved March 9, 2015.