40m바위위에서 25년동안 기도하며 사는 사제

40m바위위에서 25년동안 기도하며 사는 사제

The Georgian monk Maksim Kavtaradze has lived for a quarter of a century on a limestone monolith with forty meters in Imereti.

On the border of heaven and earth, the monastery complex of Katzis Sveti was built, which in Georgian means the Pillar of Katzha. 

In turn, the word "Katzhi" in translation from Svan is a top.

It is symbolic that the monastery is the place of the union of heaven and earth.

Since the pre-Christian times, the Pothole of Catskiah was revered by locals as a place where a person can approach God. 

The church at the top of the mountain education was built between the 6th and 8th centuries.

According to archaeologists and historians, this place has long been used to send the pagan cults to the fertility deity (apparently 

because of the clearly phallic form), and later on the top of the pillar of Katzha a small church was built by the followers of the famous 

Georgian Orthodox priest Simeon Stylnik.

Surely the creator of the present church on the top of the Katskhi pillar, Father Maxim Kavtaradze, was inspired by the examples of 

the Greek Meteora and the life of Simeon Stylite, who lived on the pillar for 25 years.

To get down from the Pillar of Katzha, it takes 20 minutes, and to climb the steep staircase - even more.