[3]According to a local legend, the Lamaria church was the scene of the murder of the nobleman Puta Dachkelani, a Dadeshkeliani, who sought to impose his rule on the free people of Ushguli.

The legend has it that the entire village helped pull a cord attached to the trigger of a musket, thus dividing equally the responsibility for killing the man.

[4] Lamaria housed a collection of dozens of church items—manuscripts, icons, crosses, and various utensils—which were catalogued by the scholar Ekvtime Taqaishvili during his expedition to Svaneti in 1910.

[5] The church is functional and currently serves as the seat of a Georgian Orthodox bishop of Mestia and Zemo Svaneti.

The latter is an oblong rectangular hall which ends in a relatively shallow semicircular apse, placed three small steps above the floor level.

The west façade has a cross, sculpted in relief, and a slab with a four-line Georgian inscription, in a mixed khutsuri-mkhedruli script, paleographically dated to the 11th century and mentioning a female donor, named Gurandukht.