sentences:  The residence of the Catholicoi was at Bichvinta (now Pitsunda) in Abkhazia (hence, the name of the Catholicate), but was moved to the Gelati Monastery in Imereti in the late 16th century.In 1814, the office of the Catholicos of Abkhazia was abolished by the Russian Empire which would take control of the Georgian church until 1917.The date when the Catholicate of Abkhazia was established is not completely clear, but most scholars put it between the ninth and eleventh centuries.