Lamaria Church

The Ushguli Church of the Mother of God,

The Lamaria church is situated at the northern outskirts of the highland village of Zhibiani, a constituent village of Ushguli, in Mestia Municipality. Zhibiani is one of the highest permanently inhabited places in Europe, located at 2,100 above sea level. The building tops a hill above the village, set against the backdrop of the 5,201 metre-high summit of Shkhara. It is surrounded by a low stone wall and defended by a Svan tower standing on its west end.^[2]

History

The Lamaria church does not appear in historical records. Judging by its architectural features, the church is dated to the 9th or 10th century.

Lamaria housed a collection of dozens of church items—manuscripts, icons, crosses, and various utensils—which were catalogued by the scholar

Lamaria is a hall church, with a prominently projecting triangular apse and a relatively large ambulatory enveloping the church on the south and west. The church is built of neatly hewn limestone blocks. The ambulatory has two doors: one is a low arched door cut in its south segment; the other, in its west portion, leads to the nave. The latter is an oblong rectangular hall which ends in a relatively shallow semicircular apse, placed three small steps above the floor level. The apse is separated from the nave by an original three-arched stone iconostasis. The vault is divided into two equal parts by a supporting arch.^[2]

The church is sparsely lit by two windows, one each in the apse and west wall. Both the internal walls and iconostasis are covered with two layers of now faded frescoes, the earlier dated to the 10th century and the second layer painted over in the 13th century. The ambulatory was also frescoed, but only fragments of its 13th-century paintings survive. The exterior bears scarce decorative stonework. The west façade has a cross, sculpted in relief, and a slab with a four-line Georgian inscription, in a mixed