The Church on the Lonely ‘Mountain’

Katskhi Pillar, a small church on the top of a huge rock column is named as the ‘Most Isolated Church in the World’ and also the church that has been listed as one of the most bizarre looking churches in the world.

After being abandoned and shrouded in legend for 500 years, the rock was scaled in 1944 by the Georgian mountaineers led Alexander Japaridze. Upon reaching the top, Japaridze found the dilapidated remains of an old church as well as the centuries-old bones of the last Christian ascetic who resided there. Nobody knows how he could get up there – this huge natural limestone column rises straight 40 meters into the air. At its top sits a church, a crypt, three hermit cells, and a small wall.

In the 4th century, Georgia adapted Christianity as its state religion, and with the arrival of Christianity, the rock became a place of seclusion for the “Stylites”, a group of early Christian ascetics who had an obsession with narrow pillars. These “pillar monks” loved spending long periods of time sitting or standing on top of a pillar so they could be closer to God. The original buildings here were built between the 6th and 9th centuries and then abandoned in the 15th century.

In 1990s monk Father Maxim Qavtaradze started to rebuilt one of the buildings, in 2005 – 2009, the monastery building on the top of the pillar was restored. The ladder was for a while only open to male visitors but no longer any more as Father Maxim now lives in a small cottage on top of the pillar as the first modern Stylite.