The summit church
St Maximus the Confessor, seen from below.
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The Katskhi Pillar is a limestone monolith about 40 m high, overlooking the Katskhura valley at Katskhi village in Chiatura municipality, Imereti. On its summit, about 150 m², the tiny church of St Maximus the Confessor stands amid the ruins of a medieval hermitage. Locals long revered the rock as the Pillar of Life, a symbol of the True Cross. In the 18th century Prince Vakhushti wrote that nobody could reach its church; the first recorded ascent came in July 1944. Studies begun in 1999 dated the hermitage to the 9th or 10th century, and a 13th-century inscription names one Giorgi, builder of three hermits' cells. In the 1990s the monk Maxime Qavtaradze revived worship here; the church was restored by 2009, and he lived on top until 2015. A shaded cobbled stairway climbs from the road to the monastery gate. Visitors walk the grounds below the rock, enter the church of St Simeon Stylites, rebuilt in 1999–2000, and see a relief cross carved into the base, while the faithful light candles in a niche cut into the rock. The summit, with a crypt, cells and a wine cellar that held eight qvevri jars, is closed to visitors: only the monks climb the iron ladder to pray, about 20 minutes up. The pillar is about 70 km by road from Kutaisi via Zestaponi, roughly 90 minutes by car, and 11 km by road from Chiatura, a mining town known for its cable cars. Allow up to an hour. Katskhi Monastery's 11th-century church stands 2 km south, and Gelati Monastery lies 37 km west as the crow flies.
St Maximus the Confessor, seen from below.
At the foot of the pillar, open to visitors.
An iron ladder up the sheer rock face.
Katskhi village, Chiatura municipality, Imereti
Yes. Women may enter the grounds and the church at the foot of the pillar, dressed modestly with their hair covered; the summit is closed to all visitors, and even nuns do not go up.
Minibuses leave Kutaisi's main bus station for Chiatura about hourly and pass the pillar's turn-off before the town, so you can ask the driver to let you off there and walk up. Otherwise ride on to Chiatura and hire a taxi for the round trip, about 11 km each way by road, agreeing the waiting time and fare in advance.