Zedazeni Monastery

Zedazeni Monastery stands high on Zedazeni mountain in the forested Saguramo ridge, north-east of Mtskheta on the left bank of the Aragvi. It is one of the cradles of Georgian monastic life. In the 540s St John, leader of the Thirteen Assyrian Fathers, settled here with his disciples, and from Zedazeni they spread out across eastern Georgia to found Shio-Mgvime, David Gareja and other communities. Tradition says the monastery replaced a shrine of the pagan idol Zaden, which gave the mountain its name. The complex is small and calm, and monks still live here.

The main church is a three-aisled basilica of St John the Baptist from the end of the 8th century, which wraps around an older hall church of about 600. A narthex and an octagonal bell tower stand on its south side. The reward for the drive is the setting: forest all around and, from the edge of the ridge, long views over the Aragvi valley. The road up from Saguramo is steep and rough in places, so a 4x4 helps after rain.

John of Zedazeni founded the monastery in the 540s on the site of an idol of Zaden, according to Georgian tradition. A small hall church was built at the turn of the 6th and 7th centuries, and at the end of the 8th century Catholicos Clement had the larger basilica of St John the Baptist raised around it. The monastery was repaired many times over the centuries, a monk's cell was added on the west side in the 18th century, and the last major restoration and landscaping took place in 1970–1971.