This article unfolds around the controversial case of Georgia’s eleventh-century Bagrati Cathedral, which represents the only site to be removed from the World Heritage List as a result of its full-scale reconstruction. After its destruction in armed conflict by the end of the seventeenth century, the first conservation-restoration works on the monument were carried out in the 1950s. In 1994, partially reconstructed but still without a roof, Bagrati Cathedral had no issues in meeting the conditions of authenticity when the nomination was made for inscription in the World Heritage List. The conflict arose further when the conservation experts did not endorse the state party’s intention to fully rebuild the cathedral, notwithstanding the fact it was stated to be crucial for its functional continuity. The International Council on Monuments and Sites and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization took the view that this scale intervention would compromise the cathedral’s outstanding universal value and authenticity. This article offers a closer look at the decision-making process, from the nomination to the delisting of Bagrati Cathedral, and analyzes the factors contributing to the conflicting interpretations of the monument’s fundamental values among stakeholders. It addresses the issues from a broader perspective to include the historical-cultural background of Georgia and local approaches to preserving the religious sites, which tend to be overlooked in the discourse.

This article explores the characteristics of preservation and restoration of religious monuments in Georgian SSR during the Soviet rule in the country. The nature of architectural restoration is analysed in the context of the USSR’s twofold approach to heritage sites—from disregard and demolition of ecclesiastical monuments as part of the anti-religious activism and modernization to the emergence of preservationist movement, which gained institutional coherence following World War II. The article shows that despite the controversial heritage politics of Soviet Union, it was during those years that the scientific-methodological approaches to restoration developed in Georgia (at that time, Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic). However, rather than following the Soviet post-war reconstruction tendencies, it was implementing the Western European principles of conservation.