Akhtala monastery is situated near the eponymous town on a high mountain ledge.

Akhtala was founded in the tenth item. as one of the fortifications. Until about the XIV century. He was named Phindza-hunk, which translated means "copper mine". In the XI century. stronghold Akhtala was an important strategic point Kyurikids kingdom. The inscription on the khachkar reads about the construction in 1188 of the Church of the Blessed Virgin daughter of the Tashir-Dzoraget Kyurike Mariam.

In the XIII century. Akhtala owned steel Zakarian. After a while it became the largest Chalcedonian monastery and cultural center of Northern Armenia. In the XIV century. called "Phindza-hunk" disappeared from historical sources. Around the 30s. XIV century. Monastery Akhtala became part of the Archdiocese of Mtskheta Catholicosate. In the first half of the XV century. for the first time in written sources mention the village named Akhtala proprietary Georgian Catholicos.

At the beginning of the XVIII century. Akhtala monastery came in complete desolation. In 1801 the Russian Emperor Alexander I issued a decree on the transformation of the monastery in the center of the Greek Orthodox Church in the Caucasus. Today - this is the most important place of pilgrimage for Greeks. Every year on September 21, they come in Akhtala, to mark the feast of the Nativity of the Virgin.

The main church is St. Astvatsatsin, built in the XIII century. Each side of the temple is decorated with traditional Georgian ornament. The walls of the church of the Virgin Mary covered with beautiful, well-preserved paintings, and only the face of the Virgin knocked hordes of Tamerlane. The conch can be seen sitting on the throne Virgin and Child, a little lower - a belt with two rows of the Eucharist and the figures of saints. On the eastern, southern and northern walls of the transept depicting scenes from the life of Christ and the Virgin Mary, saints and martyrs, on the western wall - the Last Judgment, and the room in the south-western part of the temple represented the history of the prophet Elijah and John the Baptist.

Besides the main temple in the monastery is a small church of St. Basil and the ruins of a two-storey residential building.