Catholic Churches in Georgia: Builders and Benefactors (the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries)

Abstract

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Catholic communities in Georgia were mostly comprised of Georgians and Armenians. Churches were central in their lives. More than twenty Catholic churches and chapels of both Latin and Armenian rites were built or reconstructed in Georgia during that period, mainly between 1860 and 1910. The paper discusses the difficult processes of financing church construction and the aspects of fundraising and patronage.