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CATHOLIC CHURCH

Catholics from Western Europe settled in Tbilisi in the 1230s. In 1240, Dominican monks founded a monastery in the capital. In 1328, by decree of Pope John XXII, the Episcopal Diocese of Tbilisi was established and the St John the Baptist Cathedral was erected. In the fifteenth century, the bishopric and the monastery were both abolished. From the 1630s, Catholic missionaries again arrived in Tbilisi, firstly from the Theatine Order and later the Capuchin Order. In the eighteenth century, the Capuchins had their mission with the Church of the Annunciation in Kvemo Kala district, on what is now Abesadze (formerly Catholics’) Street. In 1755, King Teimuraz II expropriated the church from the Catholics and bestowed it on the Orthodox Church. In Soviet times, the church building was redeveloped into an apartment building (13 Abesadze Street). In 1805, Capuchin priest Fra Filippo of Forano launched construction of a new church on the same street. It was consecrated in 1807 to the Assumption of the Virgin Mary; however, it was not until 1814 that the interior decor was completed. Judging from photographs from that time, the church was a simple structure of a rectangular plan with two belfries rising above its pitched roof. It was one of the first structures of Neo-Classical architecture built in Tbilisi.