Founded in the 15th century, the Shemokmedi monastery functioned as a seat of a bishopric and burial ground of the Gurieli princely dynasty.

[1] The church of the Redeemer is a three-nave basilica with the dimensions of 10 × 13 m. It is an ashlar structure, lined with bluestone, and with a white marble floor.

The surviving fragments depict Mamia II Gurieli (died 1627), Prince of Guria, and his wife Tinatin, with respective identifying inscriptions in Georgian.

Fragments of Georgian and Greek inscriptions as well as fresco depiction of the first bishop of Shemokmedi, Besarion Machutadze, survive on walls.

[1] After the death of Metropolitan Bishop Ioseb Takaishvili in 1794, the Shemokmedi sea became dormant; the bishop of Jumati became a titular Shemokmedeli, while the monastery and its possessions passed to Kaikhosro Gurieli, an influential member of the ruling dynasty of Guria, who eventually lost his estates for leading an insurrection against the Russian Empire in 1820.

[4] Over centuries, the Shemokmedi cathedral became a safe-house of ecclesiastic treasures and accumulated a large collection of various religious objects and manuscripts from other churches and monasteries of Georgia.