A reference to the diarchy in Georgia under the Mongol rule in an inscription on the church's southern wall makes it possible to date the construction to the period of 1250–1259.

The site has also yielded a 5th–3rd century BC necropolis with bronze, iron, and glassware artifacts, including seals with hunting scenes.

The area, completely deserted in the 18th century and subsequently largely reclaimed by nature, was visited and its antiquities, including the Abelia church, were first described by the Georgian scholar Ekvtime Taqaishvili in the early 1900s.

It is built of large regular grey porous dolerite blocks and faced with hewn stone, with the exception of the vault which is made of rubble.

[5] The text then goes on lamenting hardships the church-builders had to endure at the time when "the Tatars had conquered this kingdom and the whole of the country", a reference to the Mongol domination of Georgia.