If you’re a churchgoer, you likely drive down a few city streets to get to your preferred house of worship. There may not be anything fancy about the journey, but the same can’t be said for a monastery on top of a 130-foot tall limestone formation.
In the Imereti region of western Georgia, near Chiatura, there’s a limestone pillar that reaches 130 feet into the air. The formation is said to date back to ancient times when Pagan’s would view it as a symbol of fertility.
Things are a bit different nowadays, mainly thanks to the Orthodox Church of Georgia that calls the limestone pillar home. Now known as the Katskhi pillar, the church was founded in 1944 after it was abandoned sometime after the 1400s.
Construction on the pillar and the dwellings atop were started in the mid-1990s. There hasn’t been anyone in the church since 2014, but it’s still a jaw-dropping sight to see. Now the base of the formation is home to a handful of secluded Orthodox monks.
