Guide
Tibeti church is at Cevizli village in the Şavşat district of Artvin, fourteen kilometres from the district centre. No inscription survives on it, but written sources record that it was built between 899 and 914 by Asut Koh, one of the Bagratid princes who ruled the region. From the eleventh century onwards it was counted among the important religious centres of the area, and it was repaired in the twelfth and fifteenth centuries. When the region became Muslim the building was used as a mosque. Lightning struck its dome and the arms of the cross in 1885, and it was abandoned in 1889; the dome collapsed in 1953.
The roof, built of dressed stone, has four faces, and on each face is a carved ram. Figures of the apostles survive in the interior. What the church is noted for is the quality of its stonework and its carved plant ornament.
