Ttd Achi Monastery

The Achi Monastery of St. George is a medieval Georgian Orthodox church near the village of Achi in Georgia's southwestern region of Guria, 9 km south of the town of Ozurgeti. The Achi monastery was favored by the Princes of Guria, especially Simon I Gurieli and Kaikhosro I Gurieli in the 17th century. Both made significant donations to the church and Kaikhosro made it a metochion of the bishopric see of Shemokmedi. The abbotship of Achi was then hereditary in the Salukvadze-Taqaishvili family.

The church housed a gilded silver cross with a Georgian inscription mentioning the queen Tamar, which was discovered by Ekvtime Taqaishvili. The item was preserved in the Salukvadze family during the Soviet period and returned to the Achi church in 2015. The Achi church was restored to Christian use in 1991. It is inscribed on the registry of the Monuments of National Significance of Georgia. The Achi monastery is a single-nave hall church, built of hewn stone. Constructed at the end of the 13th century or in the early 14th, it was later reroofed, renovated and surrounded by a defensive wall.