Jvari (monastery) - Architecture

Architecture

The Jvari church is an early example of a "four-apsed church with four niches" domed tetraconch. Between the four apses are three-quarter cylindrical niches which are open to the central space, and the transition from the square central bay to the base of the dome's drum is effected through three rows of squinches. This "four-apses four-niches" church design is found in the architecture of Georgia, Armenia, and Caucasian Albania, and is often referred to as a "Hripsime-type plan" after its best known example, the church of St. Hripsime in Armenia. The Jvari church had a great impact on the further development of Georgian architecture and served as a model for many other churches.

Varied bas-relief sculptures with Hellenistic and Sasanian influences decorate its external façades, some of which are accompanied by explanatory inscriptions in Georgian Asomtavruli script. The entrance tympanum on the southern façade is adorned with a relief of the Glorification of the Cross, the same façade also shows an Ascension of Christ.

Uncertainty over, and debate about, the date of the church's construction have assumed nationalist undertones in Georgia and Armenia, with the prize being which nation can claim to have invented the "four-apsed church with four niches" form.