The only Georgian church in Vladikavkaz is rather old. At first it was the home-church of St Nino - 'Equal to the Apostles', and was opened in 1898 as a part of the ‘Elementary School of the Georgian Language’.

In 1933 the Georgian Patriarch Ilia II was baptized in this church.

The church and the school shared the building until 1938 when the church was closed. The Georgian school continues to operate to this day.

Seventy-three years passed before the Church of St Nino received a new building. In 2011 the church was established in an old building in the historical part of town.

The church is open for worship only once a week on Saturdays. There are few parish members, and the service, led by priest Georgi Bolotayev, is conducted in Russian.

The chapel was opened again in 2011 when the building was given to the Diocese of Vladikavkaz. A hundred years of neglect have left the building in a pitiful state.

A member of the parishioners’ council who preferred to remain anonymous told JAMnews that Ilia II sent Georgian specialists to Vladikavkaz, and that these specialists came up with a project to restore the church. The well-known Georgian architect Zurab Tsereteli also came and promised to help decorate the church. However, the promised reconstruction never came about.

Bare brick walls without plaster, a plywood altar, lights hanging from the ceiling... much has been done by the hands of the parishioners themselves.

The same member of the parishioners’ council said that one of the main problems is that the repair of the historical building is not possible without receiving the consent of the Committee for the Preservation of Monuments. Moreover, the local diocese, he says, cites financial problems.

By the church entrance there is a sign in three languages which reads: “Here, great representatives of the Georgian and Ossetian nations, Mikheil Kipiani and Kosta Khetagurov used to meet, a symbol of the friendship between nations.”