St. Nino's Church

Saint Nino’s Church is located on the southeastern shores of Paravani Lake. St. Nino was a preacher and propagator of Christianity in Georgia and she is an important saint of the Orthodox Church.

St. Nino originally fled slavery from Cappadocia in Central Anatolia and came across the Caucasus to enter Georgia from the Armenian side. That was around the year 320. At that time Georgia was called Iberia and ruled by King Mirian III.

The word about Nino’s skills as a preacher and healer soon spread in the kingdom and when Nana, the Queen of Iberia, suffered an untreatable illness, she called for Nino. Legend has it that Nino healed the Queen by saying a prayer and laying strands of her hair on her. When soon afterwards King Mirian was struck by blindness, the royal family once again called for Nino, who healed the king as well.

When the royal family asked St. Nino, what they could offer her as a reward, she asked them to convert to Christianity. In 326 King Mirian III. made Christianity the official religion, making Iberia the second Christian kingdom in the region after Armenia. Soon afterwards St. Nino retired to Bodbe Monastery, Kakheti, in the west of Georgia, where she died around the year 340.

Poka St. Nino’s Church on the shores of Paravani Lake is a rectangular platform with a small chapel and a replica of St. Nino's legendary grapevine cross, around which she is said to have wrapped vine branches and strands of her own hair. Legend has it that from this place St. Nino began her Christian work in Georgia.

Poka St. Nino’s Church, along with the Monastery of St. Nino, was established in 1989 with the blessing of the head of the Georgian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Ilia II. A few years later, in 1992, the nunnery found its home a few kilometers away in the village of Poka, around an 11th century church.

St. Nino is remembered twice a year: on June 1st, the date of her arrival in Javakheti, and on January 27th, her feast day

Picture credits: SJDC

Project “Increased regional added value in the tourism sectors of Georgia by Digital Heritage Tourism Guides” was funded by the Austrian Development Agency (ADA) with funds of Austrian Development Cooperation.