Talk:Church of Saint George (Kldisubani)

Georgian appropriation
Samvel Karapetyan does a great job of portraying the systematic Georgian appropriation of this Armenian church in the book referenced in the article: Karapetyan, Samvel (1998) (in Armenian), The State Policy of Georgia and the Monuments of Armenian Culture (1988-1998) (1st ed.), Yerevan: Research on Armenian Architecture, p. I-II,ISBN 5-8080-0144-7

In the book, there are before-and-after photos of the Armenian church, showing Armenian script inscriptions, altars, stone-crosses, and other uniquely-Armenian features of the church which were subsequently and systematically removed by the Georgian authorities or church. The pictures really do speak for themselves. There is also a chronology provided in the book of the changes. I suggest you check the book out. The ISBN number is above, so you should have no problem finding the book using WorldCat.org.

Best, Serouj (talk) 19:15, 6 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Karapetyan is called a falsificator and marginal by prominent armenologist, phd, doctor Bondo Arveladze. . Thus he a marginal and can't be used in this article as a reliable source.--Gaeser (talk) 13:53, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
 * That is your (or Bondo's) Opinion; there are over 6 billion OTHER opinions in the world... that is, everyone's got one! That doesn't in any way shape or form diminish Mr. Karapetyan's scholarship.  Samvel Karapetyan is a scholar of Armenian architecture with numerous publications.  He is the most qualified person (probably in the world) on Armenian architecture.  In any case, according to Wikipedia standards, we can qualify the statement he (or the Georgian Orthodox Church, for that matter!) claims by stating "According to Samvel Karapetyan..." (or "According to the Georgian Orthodox Church"...) Serouj (talk) 20:28, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Let me also repeat what I suggested earlier. Check out the book!  (Before passing judgement or character assassination on a person!) Serouj (talk) 20:36, 7 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Bondo Arveladze is a prominent armenologist, and his opinion is much more important than yours.--Gaeser (talk) 12:11, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Opinions... a dime a dozen. Don't attack the person; attack the idea. Serouj (talk) 07:59, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Your source is criticized by relevant scientist, who calls him a falsificator. What else do you need?--Gaeser (talk) 05:18, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * So he falsified all of the dozens of photographs in his book "The State Policy of Georgia and the Monuments of Armenian Culture", right? Genius! Serouj (talk) 06:19, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * After the Armenian church in Zugdidi, where even armenians have never been, YES, he might do that. Anyway, there is a source by a reliable scholar and an opinion of user Serouj. Who passes through WP:Source? :)--Gaeser (talk) 07:55, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * If you want to defame Samvel Karapetyan, then that would belong in the Samvel Karapetyan article. In this article, we clearly cite who claims what.  I don't think the Georgian Orthodox Church is that much of a reliable source, but we've included their claims in this article with the relevant qualifiers (X claims that... and Y claims that...).  Best, Serouj (talk) 19:06, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Also, to state the obvious: it is YOUR opinion that Bondo is a reliable source. In my opinion, Samvel is a reliable source.  I don't really know what Samvel thinks of Bondo, so I can't comment on that one! But what would Wikipedia think if Samvel isn't too fond of Bondo?  Then we've got one source (Bondo) which one Wikipedia user thinks is reliable which has mutually bad relations with another source (Samvel) which another Wikipedia user thinks is equally reliable.Serouj (talk) 19:46, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
 * My point is: don't defame a person, don't attack a person. Challenge their IDEAS.  In the case of this church, Samvel Karapetyan has published a book that details in dozens of actual photographs of the church how the church was deliberately turned from an Armenian one to a Georgian in the early 1990s.  If you can make a case against what's presented in the book, that would be another story. Serouj (talk) 19:50, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

To revisit this topic, Samvel Karapetyan's book is full of before and after photos. Before and after photos he has personally taken (not collected from others). He has similar books for Armenian sites in various parts of Azerbaijan and Georgia, that are unfortunately seeing a lot of destruction with the specific aim of hiding the Armenian history or origin of the site. It would be very easy to prove any of these photos wrong with a few photos showing otherwise. Such photos do not exist however and have not surprisingly never turned up. I am removing the tag questioning the source, which is to all appearances impeccable. --Wikiboer (talk) 02:07, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

About an "ancient" Georgian church being on site
What we have to back up this claim is a Georgian-language article that only in passing mentions that there was an "ancient" church at the site. It is a rather suspicious claim, to me, given that we don't have any other source that makes the claim. Is there any evidence of such a church? Such as its foundations, or anything else? I'd like to see at least a reliable source that makes the same claim. Serouj (talk) 19:18, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Georgian church under whose jurisdiction the building is better knows it's history than some falsificators (see topic about Karapetyan above).--Gaeser (talk) 13:54, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Not really. The church was in use by Armenians since it was first built in 1753.  That's almost 250 years!  I would think that Armenian sources would have a better understanding of the church's history, especially since the church was located in an Armenian-populated district of Tbilisi! Serouj (talk) 20:30, 7 November 2010 (UTC)