The Kashveti Church of St. George  is a Georgian Orthodox Church in central Tbilisi

Tbilisi

Tbilisi is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Mt'k'vari River. The name is derived from an early Georgian form T'pilisi and it was officially known as Tiflis until 1936...

, located across from the Parliament

Parliament of Georgia

Parliament of Georgia is the supreme legislature of Georgia. It is unicameral and has 150 members, known as deputies, from which 75 members are proportional representatives and 75 are elected through single-member district plurality system, representing their constituencies...

 building on Rustaveli Avenue

Rustaveli Avenue

Rustaveli Avenue - is an avenue in central Tbilisi named after the medieval Georgian poet, Shota Rustaveli. The Avenue starts at Freedom Square and extends for about 1.5 km in length, before it turns into an extension of Kostavas Kucha...

.

The Kashveti church was constructed between 1904 and 1910 by the architect L. Bilfeldt, who based his design on the medieval Samtavisi Cathedral

Samtavisi Cathedral

Samtavisi is an eleventh-century Georgian Orthodox cathedral in eastern Georgia, in the region of Shida Kartli, some 45km from the nation’s capital Tbilisi. The cathedral is now one of the centers of the Eparchy of Samtavisi and Gori of the Georgian Orthodox Church.The cathedral is located on the...

. The construction was sponsored by the Georgian nobility and bourgeoisie. Kashveti was built on the site of a damaged church built of brick at the request of the Amilakhvari

Amilakhvari

The Amilkhvari was a noble house of Georgia which rose to prominence in the fifteenth century and held a large fiefdom in central Georgia until the Imperial Russian annexation of the country in 1801. They were hereditary marshals of Georgia from c. 1433, from which the family takes its name...

 family in 1753. Significant contributions to the current church’s ornate design were made by N. Agladze. Kashveti’s frescoes were painted by the influential Georgian painter, Lado Gudiashvili

Lado Gudiashvili

Lado Gudiashvili was a 20th century Georgian painter. Gudiashvili was born in Tiflis on March 18 , 1896 into a family of a railroad employee. He studied in the Tiflis school of sculpture and fine art , and later in Ronson's private academy in Paris...

, in 1947.

The name "kashveti" is derived from Georgian words kva for a "stone" and shva "to give birth." Legend has it the prominent 6th century monk David of Gareja

Gareja

Gareja is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Lubsko, within Żary County, Lubusz Voivodeship, in western Poland. It lies approximately north-west of Lubsko, north-west of Żary, and west of Zielona Góra....

 of the Thirteen Assyrian Fathers

Thirteen Assyrian Fathers

The Thirteen Assyrian Fathers were, according to Georgian church tradition, a group of monastic missionaries who arrived from Mesopotamia to Georgia to strengthen Christianity in the country in the 6th century...

 was accused by a woman of making her a pregnant in Tbilisi. David prophesied his denial would be proved when she gave birth to a stone. She did, and the place received the name of "kashveti."