Skhalta cathedral

Skhalta Cathedral სხალთა
Skhalta Cathedral
Shown within Georgia (country)
Basic information
Location	Q'inchauri, Khulo District,  Georgia ( Adjara)
Geographic coordinates	41°35′06″N 42°19′47″E / 41.584967°N 42.329708°E / 41.584967; 42.329708Coordinates: 41°35′06″N 42°19′47″E / 41.584967°N 42.329708°E / 41.584967; 42.329708
Affiliation	Georgian Orthodox Church
District	Khulo District
Region	Caucasus
Status	Active since 1990
Architectural description
Architectural type	Large hall basilica plan; Monastery
Architectural style	Georgian
Funded by	Possibly Queen Tamar of Georgia
Completed	Mid-13th century

The Skhalta Cathedral (Georgian: სხალთა, sχɑltʰɑ) is a Georgian Orthodox monastery and cathedral church in Adjara, Georgia, dating from the mid-13th century. It is a large hall church design, with fragments of the 14th or 15th century Paleologian-style wall painting.

Skhalta is the only medieval church in Adjara that survived both the Ottoman and Soviet periods to become functional again in 1990. It currently serves as a seat of the Georgian Orthodox bishop of Skhalta.

The Skhalta monastery is located on a hill in the eponymous river valley, at the village of Q'inchauri, Khulo municipality, along a road, which, in the Middle Ages, strategically linked Adjara with Artani (modern Ardahan, Turkey). The written sources on Skhalta are scarce. A legend attributes the construction of the church to Queen Tamar (r. 1184–1213), who presided over the "Golden Age" of medieval Georgia. Modern studies date the church to the middle of the 13th century. At that time, the Skhalta valley was in possession of the noble family of Abuserisdze.

After the Ottoman conquest of the region in the 16th century, the church was abandoned. The monastery was rediscovered and sketched by Giorgi Kazbegi, the Georgian officer in the Russian service, who was in Ottoman Georgia on a reconnaissance mission in 1874. After Adjara passed in the Russian hands in 1878, Skhalta—then lying in the estate of the Muslim Georgian chief Sherif-Bey—was visited and described by the students of Caucasian antiquities such as Dimitri Bakradze and Countess Praskovya Uvarova. Bakradze cites a document from the period of King Alexander I of Georgia (r. 1412–1442), according to which Skhalta belonged to the patriarchal see of Mtskheta.