Bodbe Monastery is one of the most significant historical and religious places in Georgia, located on the wooded hill 2 km from Sighnaghi.
Officially called the Monastery of St. Nino in Bodbe, this sacred site is where St. Nino, Georgia’s Christian illuminator, spent her last years of life where she died in 347.
She was born in Cappadocia and raised in Jerusalem. At the age of 14, she fled with other girls to the Caucasus to escape the Roman Emperor Diocletian, who had ordered the Great Persecution of Christians.
St. Nino arrived in Georgia, where he began preaching and eventually converted the royal family to Christianity. According to legend, four stars appeared to King Mirian and dispersed over the mountains. He ordered crosses to be erected on each of the peaks.
After his death the body had to be transported to Mtskheta to be buried. However, according to legend, not even a hundred men or oxen attached to a cart could move the coffin. As a result, she was buried in the very place where her tent was located.
Over the centuries, a monastery was formed around it, which became one of the main religious centers in the area.
In the ninth century, a church was erected but the area lost its religious importance and became a refuge for monks until the fifteenth century.
In 1924, after the establishment of the Soviet regime, the Bodbe Monastery was closed. Its cathedral was transformed into an operating room and the surrounding buildings were reused as a hospital.
At the beginning of the twenty-first century the entire religious complex was restored with the construction of the new Cathedral.
St. George’s Cathedral is a basilica with three naves, with the tomb of St. Nino located in the southern apse.
Next to the cathedral are residential and auxiliary buildings where monks practice traditional crafts such as icon painting and gold embroidery.
