Members of the Georgian delegation visiting the Republic of Cyprus: the chairman of the State Agency for Religious Issues Zaza Vashakmadze, the leading specialist of the agency’s Legal Maintenance Office Valerian Liluashvili, Nikoloz Antidze the Director General of the National Agency for Cultural Heritage Preservation of Georgia and his Deputy Paata Gaprindashvili, the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Georgia to the Republic of Cyprus Revaz Lominadze visited the Ghalia Monastery of the Virgin Mary.

The Ghalia Monastery is located in the forest near the small town of Paphos district, Polis Chrysochous, northwest Cyprus. The ruins of the monastery were discovered in 1981 by Vakhtang Jobadze, the Georgian scientist, art historian and the professor of the University of California. This ancient hub of Georgian spirituality and culture was mentioned several times in ancient Georgian writing sources, including the earliest XI-XII centuries. The Georgian monks served in the Ghalia Monastery to the end of its existence. Presumably, the monastery ceased to exist at the end of the XVI century after the Ottoman occupation of Cyprus. The Ghalia Monastery was robbed and turned into ruins. The locals preserved the legend that in 1571 after the conquest of Cyprus, the Ottoman army seized Ghalia where the six Georgian monks were killed by torture, but the seventh monk flew away, he jumped from the rock safely. The frightened followers returned back but the Georgian monk built a hut and lived there until old age. The place of this miracle is called till today the “Leap of the Monk”. There is a legend about the monastery mill preserved in the believers that it worked only for the monastery and was stopped by itself as soon as other grains were found in it.

The idea of full-scale Archeological Study of the Monastery occurred in 2001 during the visit of the Catholicos-Patriarch of Georgia Ilia II in Cyprus. But after the representatives of Georgia and Cyprus reached the agreement on conducting joint research Georgian archeologists, art scholars, architects, artist-restaurators, anthropoligists, topographists and geologists have worked for years for cleaning and conservation of the monument. Now the Ghalia Monastery of Virgin Mary and the St. Nikoloz Church is completely cleaned from the ruins. The restored monastery has already been marked on the tourist map. The National Agency for Cultural Heritage Preservation of Georgia was actively involved in the project. The archeological-research rehabilitation works of the monument was financed by the Georgian side, foundation “Kartu”. The atcheological excavations revealed the church of Virgin Mary that is not later than 1000 years. The monastery was fundamentally repaired by the King Tamar. Since then it had been renewed on the eve of the 13^th and 14^th centuries. The Georgian frescoes and inscriptions of the 13^th and 14^th centuries together with various items of household and religious purposes had been discovered on the site. On the territory of the Ghalia Monastery there is a Georgian-English-Greek information board, the state flags of Georgia and Cyprus are erected and while visiting the delegation of any country the Georgian anthem and Georgian chants are heard. The locals have a special love for the Georgian monastery. They attend and participate in the church services conducted by the Georgian priests. The Monastery is most often visited by local Georgians and Revaz Lominadze the Ambassador of Georgia to the Republic of Cyprus who does a lot of work to popularize the monastery and actively cooperates with the Georgian emigration.

In 2018, the Cypriot authorities in order to mark the historic contribution of Georgians, handed over the plot of land, 13,000 sq.m., adjacent to the Ghalia Monastery for building a church-monastery on it (the state value of the land is  € 260,000, and the market value - € 1,000,000). The Cypriot authorities symbolically coincided the gift registration date – 04.01.18 – with the birthday of the Catholicos-Patriarch of Georgia, Ilia II.