Lashkendari Church

Lashkendari Church is a ruined medieval church on Mount Lashkendar in Abkhazia, an entity in the South Caucasus with a disputed political status. It is located near the small village of Khuhkuni in the Ochamchire Municipality/Tkvarcheli District, some 5-6 km south-east of the town of Tkvarcheli. The site is revered as a holy shrine by both Abkhaz and Georgians.

The church is a complex building, consisting of a main domed edifice to which a smaller church with a semi-circular apse is attached on the north. The whole complex is surrounded by a 100-meter-long protective fence. The two churches communicate through a doorway. The complex can be entered through four doors. The central entrance, located on the south side of the fence, is surmounted with an arch with a Christian cross curved in relief. Above the western door is a bas-relief with two stylized animals facing each other. This piece of arts has its closest parallel to the depiction of two deer on a tympanum above the northern portal of the 7th-century Ateni Sioni Church in eastern Georgia. The remaining two doors are on the northern side of the wall.

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