The idea to build a new cathedral to commemorate 1,500 years of autocephaly of the Georgian Orthodox Church and 2,000 years from the birth of Jesus emerged as early as 1989, a crucial year for the national awakening of the then-Soviet republic of Georgia. In May 1989, the Georgian Orthodox Patriarchate and the authorities of Tbilisi announced an international contest for the “Holy Trinity Cathedral” project. No winner was chosen at the first round of the contest when more than a hundred projects were submitted. Finally the design by architect Archil Mindiashvili won. The subsequent turbulent years of civil unrest in Georgia deferred this grandiose plan for six years, and it was not until November 23, 1995, that the foundation of the new cathedral was laid. The construction of the church was proclaimend as a “symbol of the Georgian national and spiritual revival” and was sponsored mostly by anonymous donations from several businessmen and common citizens. On November 23, 2004, on St. George’s Day, the cathedral was consecrated by Catholicos Patriarch of Georgia Ilia II and high-ranking representatives of fellow Orthodox Churches of the world. The ceremony was also attended by leaders of other religious and confessional communities in Georgia as well as by political leaders.

The site chosen for the new Cathedral complex was once a large cemetery, the oldest Armenian cemetery in Tbilisi, known as Khojavank or the Armenian Pantheon of Tbilisi (on account of the number of notable Armenians buried there).[1][2] Khojavank also once had an Armenian church, the Holy Mother of God, which was destroyed during the Soviet period. Most of the cemetery’s gravestones and monuments were also destroyed and the cemetery was turned into a park. However, Armenian sources contend that the cemetery still contained over 90,000[not in citation given] Armenian graves when the construction of the Sameba Cathedral began.[3] The cemetery was treated with a “scandalous lack of respect”.[4] No reburials were organized, and after bones and gravestones appeared scattered all over the construction site[5] protests temporarily halted[citation needed] the construction of the cathedral. However, building work soon resumed.