The XI-XII centuries were marked by the beginning of a new movement throughout the nations and cultural centres of the Byzantine area. Both in the West and in the East, manifestations of national self-determination started to emerge. These were expressed either by portraying the Byzantine Empire as essentially alien and different, or by assimilating and equalling to its culture and eventually even
rivalling the Empire.

The reign of King David IV Agmashenebeli (David the Builder) of Georgia (1089-1125) coincided with the period of political decadence and the spiritual-cultural rise of Byzantium. As the spiritual-intellectual centres in the Christian East (Syria) were diminishing to the point of total disappearance, an opposite trend was emerging in Georgia. During this period, the Georgian Kingdom established a centre, which together with the educational activities, also carried out research functions - the exact functions that the Academy of Constantinople (Magnaura / Mangana) once had.

This centre, known as the Gelati Academy remains a prime example of the ongoing transformations that occurred throughout the XI-XII centuries. The weakening of the Byzantine Empire shifted the political focus to the Eastern periphery of Byzantium and with an increased political influence, ambitions to establish the Eastern periphery of Byzantium as an intellectual centre also grew stronger. In this context, Davit the Builder aimed to present Georgia as a unifier of Eastern Christianity (like the Ptolemies after the collapse of Alexander's Empire) and as a spiritual and intellectual successor of Byzantium.

Gelati Monastery as an ancient Georgian centre of education and science represents David IV's determination to establish Georgia as a cultural centre of the region. King David’s historians declare: “This is now a foreshadowing of the second Jerusalem in the whole East, a school of all virtue, an academy of instruction, another Athens but much superior to it in divine doctrines“. David IV commenced pursuing this large-scale idea by founding the Gelati Monastery in 1106 and also by establishing a "school for youth" there, which brought the intellectual forces working in different cultural centres of the Byzantine Empire and the Christian East to Georgia. Consequently, Gelati and to a lesser extent Ikalto monasteries, determined the religious-cultural direction and political orientation of the Kingdom of Georgia for the following two centuries. It was here that the missions initiated in the ninth century by Nerse the Great Eristavi and St. Grigol Khandzteli of Tao-Klarjeti finally came to fruition. For these reasons, Gelati can be considered as a symbol of an independent and nationally distinct culture, which also belongs to an organic part of the greater ecumen – the Orthodox unity.