The Georgian Patriarchate will carry out rehabilitation and conservation works at Gelati Monastery Complex located outside the western Georgian city of Kutaisi based on the February 24 agreement signed with the National Agency for Cultural Heritage Preservation.
At the recommendation of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS/ICCROM), the Patriarchate will establish an interim committee, which will unite Georgian and foreign scientists who will work together for Gelati’s best interests.
A group of paintings conservation specialists will be dispatched to Gelati on April 10.
The Gelati complex had been part of the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1994, along with the nearby 11th century Bagrati Cathedral. They were later moved to the UNESCO list of endangered sites in 2010 when government-led restoration works led to the international organization’s warnings on “irreversible interventions” carried out on the site.
Gelati was re-accepted in the World Heritage List as a separate monument, with the decision announced at the 41st UNESCO World Heritage Committee meeting in Kraków, Poland in 2017.
In 2021, Thea Tsulukiani, the Minister of Culture, Sport and Youth of Georgia, called the 2008-2020 rehabilitation work on Gelati Monastery Complex a “big mistake” and an “experiment” that has proved “damaging” to the UNESCO World Heritage Site.
