Ghumurishi Church

Ghumurishi Church of St. John the Baptist is an Eastern Orthodox church near the village of Ghumurishi in Abkhazia, an entity in the South Caucasus with a disputed political status.[1] It is located 3 km north-west of the village, on a small mountainous plateau locally known as Sagergaio on the right bank of the Okumi river, north of the town of Gali.

The extant church is a hall-church design, heavily rebuilt in the late 19th century, on a medieval site of Christian worship. It is built of coarsely cut rubble stone and white rectangular limestone slabs. The floor was also once faced with similar slabs, but only its portion survives at the sanctuary. A belfry, now in ruins, is attached to the west wall of the church. The apse is covered with a simple dome-like roof and is pierced with three arched windows. A pair of similar windows is found each, on the southern and northern walls. Archaeological digs on the site in the 1980s unearthed two construction layers, the upper one completely covered with foliage, with roots going down to the ceiling. It is what remains of a possibly 15th-century small hall church, measuring 4.5 m x 7.5 m. The lower layer was buried in debris and occupied by remnants of a single-nave hall-church-type edifice with the dimensions of 12 x 14 m. The hall had a rectangular plan, with an eastern apse inscribed in it and had its interior divided into two with a stepped pilasters. Fragments of ornate wall masonry were also found in this layer.[2]

Not far from the church, a Georgian inscription, cut in stone in medieval asomtavruli script, was found in 1955 and brought to a museum in Sukhumi. Paleographically dated to the 11th century, it reads: "God, have mercy in both lives upon the builder of this church, the Queen of Queens, Sagdukht, daughter of Niania. Amen!" The identity of Sagdukht remains obscure.[2][3]