YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

THE LIBRARY OF THE
DIVINITY SCHOOL

A SHORT HISTORY

GEORGIAN CHURCH.

A SHORT HISTORY

GEORGIAN CHURCH.

TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN OF P. IOSELIAN, AND
EDITED WITH ADDITIONAL NOTES,

THE REV. S. C. MALAN,

VICAR OF BROADWINDSOR, DORSET.

LONDON :
SAUNDERS, OTLEY, AND CO.,
66, BROOK STREET, W.

MDCCCLXVI.

[All rights reserved.}

LONDON :
WILLIAM STEVENS, PRINTER, 3;, BELL YARD,
TEMPLE BAR.

INSCRIBED BY THE EDITOR
TO
THE REV. GEORGE WILLIAMS,
FELLOW OF KING'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE,
IN ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF
HIS KINDNESS IN MATTERS RELATING TO GEORGIAN LITERATURE,
AND OF THE ACTIVE INTEREST HE TAKES
IN FORWARDING UNION WITH THE EASTERN CHURCH.

PREFACE BY THE TRANSLATOR.

jHE desire on the part of the Anglican
Church for closer intercourse with
the Churches of the East induces me
to give from the Russian the following short
but interesting account of the Church of Georgia,
as yet little heard of, though venerable alike for
its antiquity and for its faithfulness during cen
turies of untold vicissitudes. The author, a
learned Georgian, writing for the first time a
history of the Church of his country, claims in
his Preface the indulgence of his readers for a
work which is little more than an outline of the

viii Preface by the Translator.
main features of the history he tells. The same
indulgence will, I trust, be shown also to my
work, which is only an attempt at supplying for
the present the lack of information on this branch
of the Eastern Church, until some better book
on the subject appear. I have already received
from the author himself fresh materials, which
I hope to make known at some future time,
when, D.V., I publish not merely the bald
translation of an elementary work, but the more
complete history of a branch of the Eastern
Church that deserves to be better known.
S. C. Malan.
Broadwindsor, November nth, 1865.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.
Iberia falls to the lot of the B. V. Mary — Preaching of the
H. A. Andrew — Bringing of our Saviour's Coat to
Mtzkhetha — Influence of the miracles and of the death
of H. F. Clemens on the Iberians — Preaching of S.
Nina — Authentic proofs of the conversion of the Iberians
to the Christian Faith  I

CHAPTER II.
The Church of Iberia is reckoned to the Patriarchate of
Antioch — Pilgrimage of Mirian to Jerusalem — During the
reign of Bakur (Bakar) the Church spreads and triumphs
under the shadow of the Cross, over both heathens
within and enemies without — The kings Miridat and

x Contents.
Varaz-Bakar protect the Church — Miridat, the Iberian
Julian— Archil drives out of the Church heresies and
the worship of fire — His sainted queen Sandukhta —
Intentions of Archbishop Mobidakh against the orthodox
Faith  34

CHAPTER III.
Fire-worship in Iberia — The martyr Rajden — Weakening of
Christianity among the hill-tribes of the Caucasus — Sad
invasion of the Iberian Church by heresies — Good deeds
of King Wakhtang Gorhaslan — The Church of Iberia
takes the title of Independent (alnoKtfyahos) — The first
Catholicos thereof, and his rule . . . -49

CHAPTER IV.
Arrival in Iberia of thirteen Fathers from Syria — Places
where they fixed their abode — Conversion of the Lazes
to the Gospel — Building of a Church in Bitshvinta
(Pitiunta) by the Greeks — Conversion of the Ap'hkhazes
to the Gospel  65

Contents. xi
CHAPTER V.
Persecution of the Church on the part of the Persians-
Troubles of the Church from Albanian heretics-
Arrival in Georgia of Murwan the Deaf— Divers proofs
of God's protection over the Christians of Iberia — Arme
nian heretics in Georgia — War with the Greeks— A
separate Catholicos in Ap'hkhazia and in Imereth — Geor
gian children are sent to Greece for their education 79

CHAPTER VI.
The B. Virgin of Iberia and the Iberian Convent on Mt.
Athos — Prosperity of the Church the result of the pious
deeds of kings and the fruits of martyrdom — Conversion
of the Eretes from the heresy of the Monophysites to
the true Faith — Teaching of holy men in the Church —
Georgians take part in the Crusades — State of the
Church under King Dawith III  95

CHAPTER VII.
Learned men in the Church— Restoration of the Convent of
the Holy Cross at Jerusalem — State of the Church
during the reign of Queen Tamar — Reign of George
VII. — Victories of Gengis-Khan — Disunion among the
principalities of Georgia — Remarkable men of that
time  Il6

xii Contents.
CHAPTER VIII.
Correspondence between Queen Rusudana and the Roman
Court on the occasion of the appearance of Roman
monks in Georgia — Invasion of Georgia by Tamerlan —
Flight of King Alexander, of Demetrius, and of others
into the wilderness — Attempt of the Mahomedans to
turn Colchis and Imereth to Islamism — Intentions of
the Pope regarding the Georgian Church — The Council
of Florence — Intentions of Lutheran preachers . 129

CHAPTER IX.
Greek Christians seek the' protection of the kings of Georgia
— Sad consequences of the fall of the Greek empire
even for Georgia — Embassy of King Alexander I. to
Moscow to request protection for the Church and people
— Views of Shah-Abbas towards Georgia — Embassy of
King Alexander II. to Moscow — Anxiety of the Russian
Theodore Iohannovitch and Boris Godynoff for. the
safety of the Georgian Church — Invasion of Georgia by
Shah-Abbas  142

CHAPTER X.
Glorious martyrs and other remarkable persons in defence
and support of the Church— Desolate state of Georgia —
Embassy of King Theimuraz I. to Moscow— Georgian
kings who embraced Islamism sit on the Christian

Contents. xiii
throne of the kingdom — The Metropolitan of Georgia is
present at the Council of Moscow, called together
against Nicon . . ;  153

CHAPTER XL
King lesse — Catholicos Domentius — Bondage of Georgia
under the Turks — Assistance given to Georgia by
Nadir-Shah — Deeds of the Georgian emperor Solo
mon I. — Deeds of Heraclius II. in behalf of the Church
— Efforts of Western missionaries in Georgia, and
banishment of the Catholicos Antoni I. into Russia —
Men who helped the Church, either by their life or by
their knowledge  169

CHAPTER XII.
Return of the Catholicos Antoni I. into Georgia, and his
exertions in behalf of the orthodox Church — Archbishop
Gaius — The writer Savva Orbelian — Deeds of King
Solomon II. in Imereth — Holy men of that time — The
Catholicos of Georgia becomes, ex officio, member of
the Holy Synod of all the Russias — Last and greatest
trials of the Church of Georgia — Sack of Tiflis by the
Persians in 1795 — King George the XII Ith. . . 183

On the Hierarchy of the Georgian Church . . .194

PREFACE BY THE AUTHOR.

" The Georgian Church, founded in the fourth century,
has continued hitherto distinct, and independent of other
churches. From her position she remained a stranger to the
discord and dissension between the Greek and the Roman
Churches, and is now, as ever, at one with the Greek Church.
How is it possible to explain her origin, except by the fact
that, both being of the primitive Church, they two had the
same beginning ?" — Philarete, Metropolitan of Moscow.
|ITHERTO Georgia has never had a
history of her own Church. Her
historians often mention ecclesiastical
matters and events connected with the Church,
when these have any relation to the civil state
of the people ; but then, not only too briefly,

xvi Preface by the Author.
imperfectly, without criticism, but also very often
without any regard to dates. Hence the frequent
anachronisms, the improbable statements, and also,
therefore, the difficulties which at every step
hinder the progress of the historian. Having
surmounted by main force all these obstacles, I
was obliged to have recourse to foreign assistance,
and to look into Byzantine historians and elsewhere
for what our own native sources do not yield.
Setting forth for the first time a short history
only, the writer flatters himself with the hope
that his first efforts will not draw upon themselves
unmerited censure from those who will bear in
mind that he had at one and the same time to
search out, unravel, and set in a systematic order
facts scattered in many and various works. On
this, account, therefore, he craves the indulgence
of his readers, and ventures to hope they will
kindly overlook all mistakes and defects, and
thus encourage him to a more complete history

Preface by the Author. vii
at some future time of this Church which con
tributes to the brightest proofs to the primitive
orthodoxy and adherence to the Confession of
Faith of the Grasco - Russian Eastern Church,
and that bears evident testimony to the departure
of the Western Church from the true precepts
and rules of the Apostolic and Synodal Church,
as already remarked by the author of Conversa
tion between an Inquirer and a Faithful Believer,
p. 130, and by that of the History of the Russian
Church, p. vii. Besides all this, my object in
writing this book has also been to inspire the
sons of the Georgian Church with veneration for
our orthodox Faith, and with sincere devotedness
to the Government. For a long time did the
kings of Georgia on the throne, groaning under
the Mahomedan yoke, and long for such a rule as
that which we now enjoy ; after such a rule did
our ancestors ever thirst, when Russia, chosen by
Providence as a check upon Islamism, had not
b

viii Preface by tile Author.
yet been raised from the dead by the mighty
hand of the Most High ; for this rule did the
kings Theimuraz I., Wakhtang VI., Heraclius I.,
and Theimuraz II. travel to Moscow ; to this
rule did King Heraclius II. turn himself, and
thither did George XIII. flee for shelter. In the
soul of this king rested the love of God, without
which, the holy Apostle tells us, even the power
of moving mountains is nothing. Without this
love, the genius of our glorious sovereigns would
have died out, and the glory of Iberia would
have been darkened for ever ; without this holy
love, the bloody revels of the ruthless enemies
of Christianity would never have ceased in a
Christian country. King George XIII., while
struggling with death, found yet enough of
strength and of love in his broken heart to sup
port, by every possible means, the desperate
state of Christianity in his day. Then the
Emperors of Russia welcomed with open arms

Preface by the Author. ix
to their bosom the wailing but orthodox sons
of like Faith with themselves, and the Christians
of Iberia rested at last from a long state of
exhaustion.
Candidate Plato Ioselian.

Tiftis, iZtk of November, 1835.

*#* The Author's notes are numbered ; the translator's
are distinguished by a letter.

HISTORY

GEORGIAN CHURCH.

CHAPTER I.
Iberia falls to the lot of the B. V. Mary— Preaching of the
H. A. Andrew — Bringing of our Saviour's Coat to
Mtzkhetha — Influence of the Miracles and of the Death
of H. F. Clemens on the Iberians — Preaching of S.
Nina — Authentic Proofs of the Conversion of the Iberians
to the Christian Faith.
|HE first planting of the Christian faith
in Georgia dates from the Apostolic
times. The Georgian annals favour the
tradition1 that, when the division of countries
1 The monk Stephen Swiatogorski writes thus : — " After
our Saviour's ascension into heaven, the disciples, being
B

2 History of the Georgian Church.
among the Apostles for preaching the Gospel took
place, Iberia" fell to the lot of the B. V. Mary.

assembled together on Mount Zion, with Mary the mother
of our Lord, waited for the Comforter, according to the
Saviour's command, not to depart from Jerusalem, but to
wait for the promise of the Father, and in order to see what
country should be allotted to every one, wherein to preach
the Gospel. The B. V. Mary then said, ' I will also cast my
lot among you, so that I may not be left without a share in
the distribution, but so that I may have for my lot the
country it will please God to give me.' The Apostles
listened with deference to her wishes, and the province of
Iberia was given her. She received it with gladness ; and,
as she was preparing to go into Iberia, soon after the day
whereon the tongues of fire had rested on the head of every
one of the Apostles assembled with her, an Angel of God
said unto her, ' Depart not from Jerusalem, but abide
there yet awhile ; for, the lot having fallen to thee to en
lighten that country in the end, thine influence shall continue
there ; but thou shalt have to suffer a little in the land
in which God appoints thee to dwell.' Then she tarried a
little longer at Jerusalem." — Lives of Saints for the 15th of
August. " Iberia, or " Eastern Iberia," kaBtvov tBvos 'Ifr-hpav (Dionys.
Peripl. 695), as distinguished from " Western Iberia," tirn-epwi
"Writes (yElian, lib. xiii. 15), on the inner coast of Spain, from
the Pyrenees to the pillars of Hercules (Polyb. iii. 17 ; Mar-
ciani Heracleensis Peripl. Maris Exteri, lib. ii. 4, 6, 7, 8 ;
Appian, Mithrid. cap. xxi). Hence, "l#?jpes, Iberes, Iberi, and
Hiberi, °l/3i;pfs (Prise. Perieg. 576), i. q., "Hispani, ab Ibero

History of the Georgian Church. 3
amne — quem propter universam Hispaniam Graeci appellavere
Iberiam"(Plin. N. H. lib. iii. 4). These being ol xpbs k<m4pav
yvtoo-fleVTes— yI/37)p6s (Strabo, Proleg. lib. i. c. 27), Bochart
(Paleg. col. 625, seq.) attempted to derive Iberia from the
Syriac ' Ibrid, written with the 'ain {ee), a term used in the
Old Testament to render to iripa-ra. rfjs 77)5; but, unfortunately
for him, Iberia is always written without the 'ain {ee) by
Syriac authors, such as Barhebraeus (Chron. p. 374) and
Assemani (Bibl. Or. vol. i. p. 269), &c.
Among the ancients, some, like Dionysius (Peripl. 695),
thought the Eastern Iberians, o't ttotc nvp-firnSev in' b.vo.to\uv
tupiizoiiTo, a colony from Spain, (so also Eustath. Com. in Peripl.
281 and 695 ; Strabo, Proleg. lib. iii. c. 21 ; Nicephorus,
in Geogr. Synops. ed. Miiller, p. 463). This colony, says
Moses of Chorene (lib. ii. c. 7), repeating what Abydenus states,
was brought from Spain by Nebuchadnezzar, after his conquest
of Lybia and of Spain (Iberia), (see Euseb. Chron. Armen.,
where Megasthenes is quoted on the subject ; and Megasthen.
Fragm. in Scriptor. Hist. Graeci Min., vol. ii. 416, 417).
Appian, however (Mithrid. cap. ci.), tells us that, "I/3ijpas 5^
robs iy Atrfiy ol [lev npoy6vovs, ol 51 uttoIkovs, T)yovi>Tai twc Efytwiratwz'
'I^puy, ol Bs p.6vov iiuoviinovs, "the Eastern Iberians were by some
thought to be a colony from Spain (Iberia), by others the
mother-country that colonized Spain ; while others only
thought these two nations related by having accidentally the
same name." But this identity of name can hardly be acci
dental. A. Chaho (Histoire prim, des Euskariens Basques,
Intr. p. xxiii. lxxvii. sea.) derives Iber (Ebro) from Ib-er,
" boiling or foaming river " (an etymology which W. von
Humboldt disputes in Pruning des Unters. iiber die Urbe-
wohner Hispaniens, p. 54, seq.), and makes the Eastern Ibe
rians a colony from Spain; and at p. 161 he compares the
B 2

4 History of the Georgian Church.
river Aragus of Iberia (Araxes) with the Aragus of Navarre,
the Gorde or Gordei of Alava, with a mountain of the same
name in Armenia, &c. But Francisque-Michel (Le Pays
Basque, p. 13) refutes him by quoting F. Gabriel de Henao
and other writers to prove the contrary. The subject evidently
requires greater researches than have yet been made.
On the other hand, the Georgian Wakhusht, in his geo
graphy of Georgia (Gheoghraph. Aghtsera Sakartl. p. 52),
while mentioning the three names of Georgia — Sakarth-
velo, Iveria, and Georgia — attempts to derive " Iveria,"
or Iberia, from the Georgian words ii-veria, that mean " I
have won " or " conquered," said to have been used by King
Aderki as an exclamation when he fought and overcame
Arshaki, king of Karthli, at the time our Saviour was born ;
and as a prophecy of the triumph of the Cross over idols and
heathenism. But, first, there is nothing said about this in
the history of King Aderki, given in the standard history of
Georgia (Karthlis tskhovreba, vol. i. p. 39, seq.), and, secondly,
the name "Iberia" for Eastern Iberia was known of the Romans
and of the Greeks long before the days of Aderki ; so that
this etymology of " Iberia " is worth very little. Moreover,
native writers never use the term " Iveria " or " Iberia," which
was, probably, borrowed from the Greeks, or, may be, origi
nally from the Armenians ; but they always adopt the native
names "Karthli" and " Sakarthvelo " for Georgia. It was
called Karthli by Karthlos, second son of Thargamos (Tho-
garma, Karthl. Tskovr. p. 10, seq.), who gave that name to
the place, sada daeshena, which he built for his residence, and
who also called Sakarthvelo, mis gamo mortchiltha anu tsil-
khdomiltha, to the lands he had subdued or to those around
him. (Wakhusht. Gheoghr. p. 52.)
But, in the absence of proofs, we may perhaps find in the

History of the Georgian Church. 5
following a clue to the origin of the name Iberia or Iveria.
Among the traditions of East and of West Iran, we find that
they tell in common of a Mount Caucasus on the Bactrian
frontiers of India, and of another stretching across the isthmus
that separates the Black Sea from the Caspian. The highest
range of the Bactrian Caucasus that formed the highlands of
East Iran was called Alborz (Borhan-i-qate, q. v.), and is
often mentioned in the Avesta as hara or haraiti bareh, in
Pehlevi Ar-burdj, "the high mountain," or "high chain of
mountains" (Yacna, i. 15, at Burnouf, p. 231, seq.; and Justi
Lex, q. v.j Spiegel, Av. ii. p. 37, and Eran, p. 280, seq.) ; so
also is the highest summit of Mount Caucasus, north of
Imereth, called -Elburz. Likewise is Iran, or Ariyana vaeja,
placed between the sources of the Oxus and of the Jaxartes (on
the Bactrian side of the Indian Caucasus (Lassen, Ind.
Alterth. vol. i. p. 526, seq.; Spiegel. Av. vol. i. p. 61, tr.;
St. Martin, Geogr. du N.O. del'Inde,p.83, seq., Sac), and is by
others identified with the Aran of Arabic writers (Lex. Geogr.
ad Calc. V. Salad, ed. Schultcns, q. v.), connected with
at least a portion of the Atropatene or Azerbijan, and said,
as by Kleuker (Zend Av. vol. i. p. 299, note a, &c), to have
been the country that lies between the sources of the Araxes
and of the Kur — that is, the greater portion of Iberia or
Georgia. Thus we find that, without venturing on the reck
less criticism of Ewald and of Spiegel (Eran, p. 274), who make
one word of Aran or Iran, and of Kharran, Haran, the dwell
ing-place of Abraham — we cannot but agree with Kleukerand
with Spiegel in tracing these traditions from the land of
Armenia or West Iran, eastward to the highlands of Bactria.
We find, moreover, first, that the land of Iberia was, ac
cording to Armenian writers, " higher," that is, more towards
the Alborj or Elburz of Mount Caucasus, than the settlements

6 History of the Georgian Church.
of Shem, in Armenia ; and, secondly, that the Iberians are
always called by Armenian authors Virk or Ivirk, or even, as
by Moses of Chorene, Iveriatsik. This Virk {Vra, Vrats)
seems very nearly related to ver, " above," as Ivirk is to iver,
or fvera, w««; whence " Iberia" would come to mean " the
upper country," as regards Armenia, and " Iberians " the
ol tt)j iirava x^ptw. This agrees also with what we read in
Wakhusht (Gheoghr. p. 74, seq.), that Mtzkhethos divided his
kingdom into Shida-Karthli or Middle Karthli, and Zemo-
karthli or Upper Karthli, which extended westward of the
Likh mountains to the Black Sea, and was thus the part of
Iberia adjoining to Armenia. This seems to show that the
name of Iberia must have been given by Armenians, and is
not of native origin. Whatever amount of probability there
be in this etymology, it is, at all events, better than that pro
posed by Mr. Brosset — viz., to change " Iveriatsi," the term
used by Moses of Chorene (lib. ii. c. 7, p. 93, ed. Whist.)
and by Eusebius (Chron. Arm. vol. i. p. 59), into " Veriatsi,"
which he renders "Jews," so as to make the Iberians a colony
of Jews, taken thither by Nebuchadnezzar. But (1) Jews are
called " Hreik " in Armenian and not " Veriatsi," and (2) both
Abydenus, Megasthenes, and their followers make Nebuchad
nezzar conquer Libya, and thence pass over to Spain, whence
he is said by them to have brought a colony beyond Colchis,
which, by Strabo, was thought to be the Iberians (Proleg.
lib. i. c. iii. 21).
As regards the third foreign name, Georgia, Wakhusht says
it was given mkhned momdjirneobisa mushagobisa Kar-
thoelthatha, because of the indefatigable activity and labour
of the inhabitants of Karthli, georgi {yzwpyis) meaning " a
labourer" (Gheoghr. Aghtser. p. 52). But the other reason
he gives— namely, that S. George, being related to S. Nina,

History of the Georgian Church. 7
This tradition, now generally received among the
nation, and long since commemorated by the
Church,3 rests on the testimony of native and of
Greek writers of the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth
centuries, who ascribe to the H. Apostle Andrew3

the illuminatress of Georgia, was on that account honoured
all over the country — is far more probable. Georgia is
called Kurdj by the Arabs, Gurdzistan by the Turks, and
Gruzinia by the Russians. In this history the names Iberia
and Georgia are used indiscriminately.
2 Queen Tamar (xiith century) reminds of the protection
of the B. V. Mary the soldiers whom she encouraged to
fight in the name of the faith and of the holy Church. A
Russian historian relates that she said, in presence of an
image of the Virgin, " Sovereign Lady, mother of our Lord'
of thy mercy thou hast set me queen over thy portion, thine
own land. Before me thou didst adopt my father, and now
thou hast put into my hands the sceptre of thine inheritance,
weak child as I am!"— Hist, of Russia, from the beginning
to the battle of Poltawa, vol. ii. p. 206.
3 Both the writers of the primitive Church and those of
the life of S. Nina and of Tcheta Minea (on the 30th Novem
ber) agree in saying that the Apostle Andrew was in Iberia,
and that he preached among the Alanes, the Ap'hkhazes, the
Abasges, and other nations. The testimony of Nicephorus
(Hist. lib. ii. c. 39 ; lib. viii. c. 6), although the last to
mention the preaching of Andrew among tribes that fed on
human flesh, yet explains the records of other historians and
the tradition of the people. Under these "Anthropophagi"

8 History of the Georgian Church.
the effectual preaching of the Gospel in those parts.
According to one historian, S. Andrew passed

we reckon not only Scythians and Massagetse, but also the
neighbouring Ap'hkhazes, Alani, and Albani (Daghestan), a
portion of the actual Kakhethia — names by which Greek
writers often designated Eastern Iberians, that is, men who
lived by the river Alazan, Swani, Djekittsii, and other moun
tain tribes. The same is also told by Nicetas Paphlagon
(Maxim. Biblioth. Patr. Veter. torn, xxvii. orat. ii. fol. 388).
[Eusebius (Hist. Eccl. lib. iii. c. 1) says that Scythia fell to
the lot of S. Andrew — ws T) irapiZo(ns — 'Avb~p4as 5e Tr/y StcvBiav —
jrepfex*'- — Transl.]
Other writers speak of the preaching of the Gospel in
Iberia by other Apostles. S. Jerome says that S. Matthew
preached the Gospel in the second Ethiopia. By Ethiopia,
the ancients in general meant Colchis : " in altera Ethiopia ubi
est irruptio Apsari et Hyssi portus." These two rivers
existed only in Colchis ; and this is yet confirmed by
Sophronius, who says that the H. Apostle Andrew preached
in Sebastopolis the great (Dioscuria), near to which the
river Apsarus, as well as the Phasis, flows into the sea. The
Ethiopians, he says, peopled that land. — Geog. Sacra Bo-
charti, lib. iv. c. xxxiv, col. 286.
According to Sophronius, the Apostle Bartholomew
preached the Christian faith in Albania, at present called
Daghestan. Apud Hieron. Descript. Eccl., and also Nicet.
Orat. in Bartholomaeum, p. 397. Tradition numbers him
among those who suffered in those parts ; others place his
tomb in the city of Albanopolis, reckoned to the greater
Armenia. — Moses of Chor. Geogr.

History of the Georgian Church. 9
through Cappadocia, the sea-coasts, and Trapezus
into Lower Iberia, where he first preached the
Gospel in the town of Didatchara.b Thence he
went to preach in Clarjeth,4 in Atskver,5 in Tschum,6

* Did-Atchara, or Adjhara, a town in the district of
Adchara, called after mountains and a river of that name
between Meskheti and Gouria, in Upper Karthli.
* Clarjethi is the name of an ancient territory of Georgia,
situated on the borders of Anatolia, to the south-west of
Akhaltsik. To this day one finds here and there remains of
ancient monuments relative to the preaching of the Gospel
in those parts. — Saint Martin, torn. i. 47.
6 Atskver, one of the most ancient cities of Georgia, on
the Kur, was remarkable, in the flourishing days of Chris
tianity, for a large and handsome church to the B. V. Mary,
whose wonder-working image is yet known by the name of
the B. V. of Atskver. It was the seat of a Metropolitan ;
but the Turks, having made war against it, turned to Islamism
all its inhabitants, as well as those of the surrounding
country, and having, during three hundred and nine years,
succeeded in destroying every vestige of the Georgian
language, they also with it effaced all traces of Christianity.
Atskver was in 1828 restored to Georgia, by the treaty of
Adrianople, after the peace with Turkey.
6 Tskhumi, or Tskhomisi, near to the shores of the Black
Sea, also one of the most ancient towns of Georgia, was
destroyed by Murvan the Deaf in his wars with Georgia, in
the year 731. It is at present (1843) omv a village, in the
hands of the Turks.

10 History of the Georgian Church.
in Mingrelia,0 in Ap'hkhazia, and in other places ;
and his teaching was accompanied by miracles
and the healing of diseases, which are all told in
detail by native historians. We may safely infer
that this preaching was not altogether without
fruit, from the fact that, although the seed of the
Gospel was crushed by King Adercd (A.D. 55),

0 Mingrelia, also called Odishi, or Afi 'khazethi, and, by the
Greeks, Abasa (Wakhusht, Gheoghr. p. 400), was reckoned
to Egros, son of Thogarma, and from him was called Egris.
Hence the native adjective Meegrelni, or Megrelni — i.e., " of
Egros," or " of Egris ;" but the term Megrelia is never used
in ancient Georgian authors (Wakh. p. 393, note 1).
d Aderc, or Aderki, was the tenth king of Georgia, and
son of Bartomi. He took possession of the kingdom of
Karthli, ruled in Mtzkhetha, and is said to have well
governed his people. The first year of his reign, ishwa
Uflhali trtvweni Yeso Christe, our Lord Jesus Christ was
born, and news of His birth was brought to Mtzkhetha by
the wise men from the East, who went to Jerusalem at that
time. During the reign of Aderki, the H. Apostle Andrew
came first to Trapezus (Trebizond), then to Did-Adchara, in
Akhal-Tzikhe", and thence went all over Iberia, where he
preached the Gospel and wrought many miracles. At that
time, also, came Elioz and Simon the Canaanite, whose
tomb is shown in the city of Nicope, or Nicophia. Aderki,
angry at the sight of Karthli, and of Mingrelia, turned
from their idols through the preaching of S. Andrew, called

History of the Georgian Church. 1 1
who soon raised a persecution against the new
converts, yet neither the worship of idols nor that
of fire ever after became as prevalent as before.
We find, also, that the tomb of Simon the Canaanite,?

together all the Eris-thaws, or princes, of those provinces,
brought them back by force to idolatry, hid or destroyed the
crosses and the images, and was wroth against the Eris-thaw
of Clarjeth, who let S. Andrew depart in peace to keep the
Passover at Jerusalem. The H. Apostle, however, returned
thence into Iberia, where he continued to preach the
Gospel and to work miracles with great success. — Karthlis
Tskhovreba, pp. 39 — 45 and 46.
7 Besides native historians, other writers of the Apostles'
lives allude to this. Cod. Apocryph. Novi Testam. a Joh.
Alb. Fabricio Hamburgi, anno 1703, p. 629. Beda Retractat.
in Auctor. cap. 1. " Simonem Zelotem et Judam Jacobi re-
ferunt historiae, in quibus Apostolorum passiones con-
tinentur, et a plurimis deputantur Apocripha, praedicasse
in Perside, ibique atemplorum Pontificibus,in civitate Suanira
occisos, gloriosum subiisse martyrum. Quibus adstipulatur
et liber martyrologi; qui B. Hieronymi nomine ac praefatione
attitulatur quamvis idem Hieronymus illius libri non auctor,
sed interpres. Eusebius autem auctor extitisse narretur.
Confer martyrologium sub Hieronymi nomine a Florentinio
editum et illustratum, pag. 166 et 938, ubi pro Suanir
lego excusam Suanis," remarks Fabricius. No mention is
made anywhere in antiquity of the town Suanira, in Persia.
On the other hand, Pliny mentions the Suani as inhabiting
ancient Colchis ; N. H. lib. vi. c. 9. Likewise Ptolemy, lib. v.

12 History of the Georgian Church.
fellow-traveller of S. Andrew, and left by him in
those wild regions for the confirmation of the
Gospel — a tomb which is shown at the present day
on the hills of Ap'hkhaziae, soon became an object
of pious veneration for the lawless tribes of the
c. 9, and Strabo, lib. ii. allude to theSuani as living in the country
called Suanet, to the north of Iberia ; with which also agrees
Menander Protector, a Byzantine historian, p. 116, 120, 123,
126, &c, who describes the situation of that people in the
very words of the Persian king Chosroes, in his fruitless
contests with the Greek emperors. That people lived, says
that writer, on the mountains of the Caucasus ; and their
manners and customs are thus described by him : incola
Khdmzs re Kal Xacpvpdyuyoi tca\ ¦xo.\€ttccv %py<av iced avodcev ipyarai.
This is further confirmed by Isidorus, De Morte et Vita
Sanctor. cap. 81, who writes that Simon the Cananite, or
Zelotes, is buried on the Bosporus ; Calend. Rom. ad diem
26 Octobris. Local tradition also places his tomb in the
ancient city of Anacopia or Phanacopia (in ancient maps
Nicophia), where may yet be seen the ruins of an ancient
Church. — Voyage Du Bois, torn. i. p. 276; Klaproth, Voy. au
Caucase, torn. ii. p. 113 et 114.
6 According to Wakhusht (Gheoghr. p. 406), Nicophia, or
Nicop'hsia, where Simon the Canaanite is said to have been
buried, is the same as Bitchwinta, in Aphkhazeth, and on the
sea-shore. Speaking of Bitchwinta, he says, "A mas vhgoneb
Nacofhsiad — vinad-gan Nacop'hsias dap'hlul ars motsikuh
Simon CananeW — "I think it is Nacop'hia, since the
Apostle Simon the Canaanite is buried in Nacop'hia."

History of the Georgian Church. 13
Caucasus. At all events, a result of his preaching
was to put a stop to the cruel and bloody
custom of offering children in sacrifice to the gods
of the country, and of devouring dead bodies/ after
the manner of the Scythians, of the Massagete,
and of other neighbouring nations ; for King Rew,8
who abolished these heathenish rites, won for
himself in history the title of "the Just."g
II. This great event of the enlightenment of Iberia

f Hence the local proverb, " Carsneltha hmartebs Codman-
eltha khuti mcudari" — "The Carsinians owe five dead to
the Codmanians," alluding to the custom of eating the dead,
either those who died naturally or those who fell in battle.
This, however, may be only the expression of a deep-seated
and hereditary hatred. — Wakhusht, Gheoghr. p. 8.
8 In greater detail, in Georgian historians of Wakhtang, in
the article about the XlXth king, Rew.
8 There is nothing said of eating the dead in the History
of Georgia, where we read, at p. 56, vol. i., that this Rew,
son of Somkhet, and king of Georgia, took to wife the
daughter of Logothetes, and with her brought in the goddess
Aphrodite, which he set up on a hill near to Mtzkhetha. He
seems, however, to have had some notions of Christianity,
and was of a kind disposition, for argha-ra-vis uteva
Karthlsa shina qrmatha clwa, he put a stop to the human
sacrifices of boys, which, until his reign, were offered to idols,
and etsoda Rew marthali — was called " Rew the Just."

14 History of tJte Georgian Church.
was preceded by a very important circumstance,
which we read in detail in native writers. A certain
Hebrew youth,9 by name Elioz, one of the soldiers
that were about the Cross of our Lord, got for his
share our Saviour's coat ; and he, having wandered
to the hill of Mtzkhetha,11 brought that coat with

'According to Georgian and to Armenian historians,
Hebrews settled in Iberia before the times of Nebuchad
nezzar. There can be no doubt that, at the dispersion of the
ten tribes by Salmanazar all over Asia, and when they settled
on the banks of the Euphrates and in the wildest parts of
Media, some of them may have found their way into Georgia.
So writes Moses of Chorene, lib. i. ch. 8, 22.
h Mtzkhetha — probably the Mea-TKijTa of Ptolemy ('I<3?jp'0ecns.
lib. v. c. 1 1), the x being easily changed into \ — was, according
to Georgian historians, built, between the rivers Mtcwari
and Aragwi, in the province of Karthli, by Mtzkhethos, son
of Karthlos, who made it his residence and the capital of the
kingdom. Later, king Mirian built in his garden a church
of wood, says Wakhusht, dedicated to the twelve Apostles,
wherein our Saviour's coat and Elijah's mantle were deposited.
Mirdat, XXVIth king, coated with cement and stones the
principal pillar of that church, made, some say, of a mi
raculous tree ; and over it he placed a cross that yields a
wonderful balm for cures, whence its name, Samirone,
" yielding balm." To the north of that church Mirian
built the beautiful church of Ghthaeba, at Samthavro, and
dedicated to our Saviour. Wakhtang Gurgaslan placed

History of the Georgian Church. 1 5
him.10 The miracles which then followed, as well as

there a bishop ; and later the same king made it the seat of
a Catholicos. That church, repeatedly destroyed, and as
often rebuilt, yet shows remains of its ancient splendour ; for in
it were the kings of Georgia buried. Mtzkhetha is now only
a large village, surrounded by mountains. — Wakhusht,
Gheoghr. p. 208, s. 9.
10 Told more at length in the Acts of the Archeol. Com
mission, vol. iii. p. 235.
The coat of our Lord is emblazoned on the arms of the
kingdom of Georgia. This was first done, we find, when the
race of the Bagratides ascended the throne, towards the end
of the sixth century. The first of this dynasty was Guram
Bagratide, son adoptive of Stephen, last Georgian king of
the house of the Sassanides, and at his death confirmed on
the throne of Georgia by the Emperor Justinus II. with the
title of Curopalate. This dynasty draws its origin from the
King- Prophet David ; and for this reason did the kings of
Georgia take the title of" Son of Jesse," " David," " Solomon,"
&c. On their arms were emblazoned the sling that served
to kill Goliath, David's harp, a pair of scales, as emblem of
the wisdom of Solomon, a lion, on which rested Solomon's
throne, and our Lord's coat, with this inscription round : "Now
the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout ;''
and the great martyr and champion S. George slaying the
dragon. All round this coat-of-arms is the inscription taken
from the Psalms: " The Lord hath sworn in truth unto David,
he will not turn from it : of the fruit of thy body will I set
upon thy throne." — Ps. cxxxii. 2. Constantinus Porphyro-
genitus testifies in his book De Administr. Imp. cap. 45, that

1 6 History of the Georgian Church.
the news of the spreading of the blessed teaching
of Christianity all over the world, having reached
the Jews of Iberia and of Mtzkhetha, where those
relics were kept, prepared the hearts of the heathens
of Iberia to receive the Gospel ; for, at the place,
in the cathedral of Mtzkhetha, where our Saviour's
coat is kept, oil is said to have sometimes flowed ;
and this event is to this day commemorated by
the Church of Iberia, on the feast of the ist of
October. III. The light of Christianity ceased not to shine
over that country ever after the preaching of S.
Andrew. For we read in Irenaeus that, in the hun
dredth year after Christ, the Roman bishop Clemens,
who was sent by the Emperor Trajan into banish
ment, to the barren shores of the Black Sea, to the
Taurian Chersonesus along the Cimmerian Bosporus,
was the means of carrying the glad tidings of the
Gospel into many places of Iberia, by means of divers
confessors from Colchis and from Iberia who were

the kings of Georgia descend from the prophet David, and
that these descendants of David quitted Jerusalem about the
year 500 of the Christian era.

History of the Georgian Church. ij
converted to the Christian faith through his
miracles and martyrdom.11 Not long after, however,
appeared in the Church of Colchis, Palm, himself a
Colchian and Bishop of Pontus, together with his
son, the heretic Marcion, against whose errors
Tertullian inveighs loudly.12
IV. Afterwards, the Christian religion was lastly
and finally established in Iberia through the preach
ing of Nonna or Nina.13 This holy woman, born in
11 Lib. i. c. 9, and the following is also found in Baronius:
"Partem illam Iberiae, quae vergit ad mare Ponticum, Colchi-
cam olim sub Trajano imperatore praedicatione S.Clementis
Papae Evangelium subcepisse, et Irenaei quoque testificatione
constat, longe ante hoc tempore (327 ann.) Iberos Christianam
fidem amplexatos esse. Qui autem juxta Caucasum incolunt
Iberi inferiores vergentes ad Mare Caspium, ii putantur sub
Constantino Christi fidem sectati esse." — Annal. Hist. Eccl.
torn. iii. in the events of the. year 327, iv. and xv.
12 Lib. i. contra Marcionem.
13 In our historians S. Nina is not called a captive. The
name of this holy woman is most likely a proper name. It
is not known with certainty whether or not it may have
been the name of the monastic order which she took, as
some think, and as S. Jerome, in his Epist. ad Eustacium de
Custodia Virginitatis, explains in this wise: "Et quia mari-
torum expertae dominatum, viduitatis praeferunt libertatem,
castas vocantur et nonnae."
Without contradicting the statement that, as Rodiginus, C

1 8 History of the Georgian Church.
Colastri, a small town of Cappadocia, was the
daughter of a certain Zabulon, and was brought up
by a God-fearing old woman, by name Sarah
Bethlehemlianka, keeper of a temple ; but Nina
was both directed and established in the faith by
her uncle on her mother's side, the Patriarch of
Jerusalem. Historians tell us that her parents,
having long been without offspring, and having
received her after a vow, consecrated her to God,
and that themselves afterwards removed to the
Jordan. S. Nina went to Rome with the blessing
of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, and at last decided
on devoting herself to the work of preaching the
Gospel in Iberia, known to her as the place where
the Lord's coat was kept. While thus disposed,
she was strengthened by heavenly visions ; and,
as an earnest of the success which awaited her,
she received at the hands of the B. V. Mary a

lib. v. c. 12, writes, religious women in Egypt were called
nonna, nuns, we may still think that this common name in the
mouth of the first Christians was afterwards changed into a
proper name, as we find in the name of the mother of S. Gre
gory of Nazianzus. Heribertus, in suo Onomastico, speaks
of this in detail.

History of the Georgian Church. 19
cross14 made of the wood of the vine. While on her
14 Armenian historians have a great deal to say about this
cross, called the Cross of Nina. That cross was already in
the hands of the Armenians after the martyrdom of Susanna
or Shushanika, who, according to Georgian historians, suffered
in the middle of the sixth century, but in the fifth, according
to Armenian authors, at the hand of her husband Vasken,
because she renounced the worship of fire. Armenian writers
calculate the years since it was discovered. Vartan writes con
cerning this cross, that, after being used as a sign or standard
in the wars with the Greeks, it was brought back a second
time to the town of Vanadad, whence it received the name of
the Cross of Vanadad.
The Armenian Church celebrates the memory of the
victory won over the Greeks, and of the wonders witnessed
by the generals of the Armenian army, by a feast, kept, at
present, on the Sunday within ten days after Ascension Day.
Our own native historians, however, relate that, by order of
King Theimuraz II., and by the hands of zealous pastors of
the Church, this cross was, during the troublous times of the
Church, taken to the mountains and placed in the Church
of the B. V. Mary in Ananura. After that it was taken to
Russia by the metropolitan Timothe in 1 749, and given to
the Princess Bakara Wakhtangovitsa, in Moscow. At last,
the Georgian Prince Alexandrovitch, Bakara's grandson,
offered it, in 1801, to the Emperor Alexander, who sent it
back into Georgia as a relic of the Georgian Church.
From that time it has been preserved by the side of S.
Nina's image, in the Cathedral Church of the Synod of Sion,
in Tiflis. — Mich. Tchamtchean, Hist, of Ann. 1 1, p. 87 and 599 ;
and Armen. Synaxarion for the 20th of March.
C 2

20 History of the Georgian Church.
way to Iberia she succeeded in turning many to
Christ ; and although in Armenia she was exposed
to persecutions and to trouble, she was miracu
lously rescued from the captivity which her fellow-
travellers Ripsima and Gaiana had prepared for her.
On reaching the borders of Iberia, she planted the
first cross on the mountains of Djavakhethi,1 and
preached the Gospel in the towns of Akhalkalaki,j
Urbnis, and at last in Mtzkhetha, the capital of
Iberia. There, a festival in honour of the gods
Armaz and Zaden15 afforded her an opportunity of

1 The Djawakhethi is the district extending from the Lake
Phanawar to the Mtcwari, given in possession by Mtzkhethos
to his son Djawakhos. — Wakh. Gheog. p. 72.
' There is more than one town of this name in Georgia.
The one here alluded to is doubtless the town of Akhal-
kalaki, in Djawakhethi. Urbnis was built by Uphlos, son
of Karthlos, and is situate to the west of Ruis. It was once
a bishopric. 15 " II est facile," writes the Academician Brosset, " de re-
connaitre dans ce nom le Be6s ou Jupiter des Grecs, le Quadata
ou Swadata, Zend ;" i.e., le Dieu, donn£, cre'e' de lui-m£me, d'ou
se sont forme' le khouda, " Dieu," Persan ; le " Gott," Allemand ;
le " God," Anglais ; le " Khouti," Georgien. — Ge"ogr. de
Georgie par Wakhusht, p. 2.
[Zaden — M. Brosset, the editor and translator of Wakhusht,

History of the Georgian Church. 21
beginning her preaching with an earnest prayer to
God ; after which arose a dreadful storm, accom
panied by unusual hailstones, that dispersed the
people and the court assembled at the feast, and, in
the words of a writer of that time, " threw down the
idols and cast them into pits, into clefts of the
rocks, and into holes of the earth, from before the
terror of the Lord, and from the glory of His
might."16 Three days after this event, ascribed by the
heathens to the anger of their gods, S. Nina went
to Mtzkhetha, preached Christ, and in His name
granted a son to the wife of the king's gardener,
with whom she was staying, and who, hitherto^ had

says that it is easy to recognise £eos {sic) in Zaden. But
others will find it very difficult. I can find no other account
of this idol, either in Tchamtchean, Indjijean, Eznig, Liber-
Adami, Chwolson, Borhan-i-qate, or in any other book within
reach. As it is evidently more nearly allied to " Satan " than
to 6=5* or to 8e6s, and as it is mentioned together with Armazd
(Ormuzd), and coupled with it, perhaps is it meant for the
principle of evil, as Armazd is for that of good, and instead of
Ahriman ; unless "Zadea" be in any way allied to Ized, Yesht,
or to Isates. — Transl.]
Words of a cotemporary of S. Nina.

22 History of the Georgian Church.
had no child. In that house she also healed the
son of a widow by placing him on her bed and
covering him with her own sackcloth. This
miracle drew on S. Nina the notice of the king's
wife, daughter of the commander-in-chief of Pontus,
who had long been suffering from a severe illness,
and who also had some knowledge of Christianity,
but was not yet converted to it. S. Nina, having
restored her to health, won to herself disciples and
hearers from among the queen's attendants ; the
Jewish priest Abiathar and his daughter Sidonia ;
the mother of the youth she had recovered from
his sickness, and a courtier; and, lastly, she
granted recovering of sight to the king himself,
who had suddenly been struck blind while hunting
on the heights of Thkhoth.k The result of this

k Thkhoth. — This mountain of Karthli is mentioned by
Wakhusht (Gheoghr. p. 216) as being to the west of the river
Ksani, romelsa zeda moektsa mep'he Mirian Christianed, "on
which mountain King Mirian turned Christian." It is situated
to the west of Mtzkhetha and not far from it. Sidonia relates
(Karthlis Tskhovr, p. 86, seq.) that King Mirian, angry at the
success of S. Nina's preaching, called together his councillors
and told them his advice was to ill-treat qovelni mosavni
djwar-tsmulisani, all those who hoped in the Crucified, and to

History of the Georgian Church. 23
cure was, that the king, known by the name of

show greater devotedness to the worship of the gods of
Karthli. " Persuade ye my wife Nana," said he, " to repent
and to abandon the faith of the Crucified ; and if she will not,
I will give up my love for her, and otherwise bring her to
grief." The courtiers assented, though unwilling at first, and
ashamed to do it openly. Meanwhile, the king went through
the whole neighbourhood, and up, even, to the very top of the
high mountain of Thkhoth, whence he could see eastward
from Casp (a town near the Ksan) to Up'hlis-tsikhe' westward.
There, at mid-day, in broad daylight, the sun over him was
darkened, and a dark, endless night followed and surrounded
him on all sides. His attendants wandered away from him
in all directions full of alarm and anxiety, and left alone the
king who, with fear and trembling, groped about the
forest ; at last halted in one place and gave himself up for
lost. As he stood there thinking, he reasoned thus within
himself : " I called upon my gods but found no relief ; now
will I call upon Him whom Nina preaches on His cross —
on Him that is laid on it ; for I am, as it were, alive in
hell. Who knows whether this have happened because of the
people of the land, or on my account ? If it be because of me
that this calamity is come upon us, then, O God of Nina,
turn this my night into day, and make me to see my country,
and I will extol thy name, aghvmartho dzeli djwarisa da
thaqwanis-vstse mas, I will set up the wood of the Cross and
worship it, and I will myself build a house of prayer and
become obedient in the Greek Faith to Nina."
No sooner had he ended his prayer than the sun shone
overhead ; then the king alighted from his horse, and stood

24 History of the Georgian Church.
Mirian, of the race of Chosroes, renounced idolatry
under the teaching of S. Nina, and was by her
baptized, together with his whole house and with
all the inhabitants of the capital. He then sent
(A.D. 318) an embassage to the new Rome (Con
stantinople), to the Emperor Constantine, requesting
to have a bishop and priests sent him. While
awaiting the arrival of those men, who were to give
him advice, and to consult with him for the preach
ing of the Gospel in his dominions, the king
levelled his own vine-garden, and thereon built a
temple. There is a tradition that, while that temple
was building, the workmen, having set up six
principal pillars, were not able to set up the
seventh ; but that, at S. Nina's instance, angels
appeared who, in sight of the whole people, took
hold of that pillar and set it up in its place. The
king, astonished at this manifestation of God's help
and power, brought together abundance of silver,

on that spot, spread his hands to the east, and said : " Thou,
O God, art God over all gods and Lord over all lords — the
God of whom Nina speaks, and Thy name is praised from
the creation of the world, under heaven and over the earth
beneath it."

History of the Georgian Church. 25
of gold, and of precious stones, for the building and
adorning of that temple.
V. Soon after came the patriarch Eustathius17
from Antioch, with priests, with much clergy, and
with the heir to the throne of Georgia, Bakurius
(Bakar), who had hitherto been kept as a hostage
by the Greeks. They brought, as presents to the
king, consecrated relics of our Lord's passion,18 a
17 The coming of Eustathius, partriarch of Antioch, into
Iberia is not mentioned either by Greek historians or by any
of the Byzantine writers. This account is taken from docu
ments made over by Emperors of Constantinople and by
Kings of Georgia to the Iberian Monastery on Mount Athos,
and preserved there unto this day.
18 Constantine the Great, having discovered the Cross of
our Salvation about this time, and having collected together
many bones of saints and other offerings, sent to the new
Christian king the foot-board and a nail of our Saviour's
Cross, which are to this day preserved in the Synod of the
Ascension at Moscow. They were brought from Georgia to
Moscow by King Artchil in 1686. The valuable crown in
which is set that nail is a work of the thirteenth century, as
I was assured by M. Brosset in 1836 ; for, as one sees by
the Greek inscription engraved thereon, it was made by order
of David, King of all Georgia, and son of Queen Rusudana.
The letter of Constantine to King Mirian is given by ancient
historians of Georgia, albeit not one of the Byzantine his
torians alludes to it

26 History of the Georgian Church.
few bones of saints, and images of our Saviour and
of the V. Mary, his mother ; and, by their preach
ing, they wrought out the conversion of the whole
of Iberia to the Christian faith, from the shores of
the Black Sea almost to the mountains of Albania,
and from the range of Caucasus to the frontiers of
Persia. The first temple was dedicated to the
name of the Saviour, and the second to the twelve
Apostles. Having thus built up and established
peace and concord in the new bond of the Christian
faith, the patriarch returned to Antioch, but not
before he had consecrated the presbyter John as
Bishop of Iberia. The king, instructed by S. Nina,
then sought out the place where the coat of our
Lord was kept ; and he ascertained, by divers signs
and tokens, that it was kept where the seventh
pillar was miraculously set up by the angels. In
remembrance of the discovery of this relic, the king
dedicated to S. Nina the first chapel in the temple
of Mtzkhetha ; and, at her request, four crosses
were made out of a cedar growing in the town, and
not only venerated, but all but worshipped for its
beauty by the heathens. These crosses, intended
as tokens of the church just founded, were planted,

History of the Georgian Church. 27
one on the hill over against Mtzkhetha, on the
other side of the river Aragwi, where is now the
temple dedicated to the Cross of our Salvation;
the second was hoisted upon the hill Thkhoth,
on the spot where King Mirian was struck with
blindness; the third was placed in the town of
Kakheth, called Boda;1 and the fourth was set up
in Udjarma.m Both from these crosses and from
the miraculous pillar that went already by the
name oiDjivotvorets, " life-giving,'' and Myrototchivi,
"flowing with oil," were sundry cures and other
miracles wrought, to the still greater strengthening
and confirming of the people in the faith.
S. Nina, having witnessed the conversion of

1 Boda, or Bodbe", on the river Boda, in Kakhethi, is the
name of a large and beautiful church where S. Nina died, and
lies buried. Her tomb was built and the church was adorned
by Bakar, XXVth king of Georgia, and it became a bishopric.
The Bodbel or Bishop of Bodbe" is held first bishop of Kakhethi
in honour of S. Nina. — Wakhusht, Gheoghr. p. 308, seq.
m Udjarma is a town of Kakhethi, situated between the
mountains of Kakhethi and those of Koukhethi, built by the
lid king Saurmag of Georgia. This is, however, doubtful.
It was restored by Gurgaslan, who made of it a fortified city ;
but it is now a village.

28 History of the Georgian Church.
Iberia to the Christian faith, and seeing the country
established therein, withdrew from the noise of the
world, and retired to the mountain pass of Bodbe,
in Kakheth ; though not until she had, with her
own efforts, built, in several parts of Iberia, temples,
dedicated to her fellow-countryman, martyr, and
confessor, S. George,19 and had, according to Moses

19 S. Nina was akin to the martyr S. George, and after his
martyrdom she was raised to the honour of a place in his
Church. At that time Georgia chose him for her patron,
and the kingdom placed his image on the national escutcheon ;
and this honour paid to his name soon spread East and
West. (Allgem. Gesch. der christl. Relig. u. k. v. Neander.
Hamb. 1829, 8vo.) He was venerated especially by Anglo-
Saxons, and afterwards the English chose him also for their
patron saint. In the fourteenth century the French took
this saint as witness and patron in their judicial duels ; at
last the Russian eagle wore him on his breast. (See grosses
vollstand. Universal Lexicon aller Wissensch. torn. x. 1735,
Leipz.) The general distribution of the images of this saint,
all over the Crimea, shows that he has always been held in
special veneration by the people of that country. (Hist, of
the Russian Hierarchy, vol. iii. p. 689.) And here it may not
be out of place to mention, for the benefit of Archeologues,
who would seek into the origin of St. George being repre
sented on a horse slaying the dragon, that in Georgia proper
he never was represented on foot, but in the city of Imereth

History of the Georgian Church. 29
of Chorene,20 strengthened the faith of many of
the inhabitants of the outskirts of Iberia. But
when, at last, S. Nina felt herself about to depart
from this world, she sent for the king and the
queen, gave them her last injunctions, blessed
them, received the Body and Blood of Christ at
the hands of the Bishop, promised to bequeath
her remains to the prior of her convent in Bodbe,
and died. Such are the principal facts recorded
in history respecting the conversion of Iberia to
the Christian faith.
VI. The truth of these accounts is well authen
ticated by the additional testimony of writers of
the eleventh, twelfth, and nineteenth centuries, who
grounded their history on private documents - of
a great age relative to the conversion of Georgia
to the Christian faith, written from the mouth of
S. Nina by Sudka (Sophia), queen of Kakheth,
who had been converted by S. Nina. The Arme-

called Khoni (Onoguris according to Procopius), and in the
Church, which was once a Cathedral, there is an image of
S. George represented without a horse.
20 Lib. ii. ch. 83.

30 History of the Georgian Church.
nian records of these events differ in some par
ticulars ;21 this, however, may be easily accounted

21 Moses of Chorene writes that S. Nina, whom he calls
Nunia, feeling persuaded of the king's entire readiness to
receive the faith, sent to S. Gregory, the Illuminator of
Armenia, faithful men with the intelligence of what she had
already accomplished, and asked for further instruction as to
what she was to do in order to establish Christianity in
Iberia. S. Gregory directed that idols should be thrown
down, as he was himself doing at the time, and that the
Cross should be set up in their stead, as a proper object of
worship, until the Lord sent them a pastor and guide. In
obedience to these directions S. Nina threw down the idol of
the thundering Aramazda, which she also caused to be cast
into the foaming stream ; for it stood near to the city at a
place of common resort, and the inhabitants worshipped it
every morning with their families, as it stood upright before
their houses. And he who wished to offer a sacrifice to it
had to cross the river and lay it before the temple of the
idol. The principal inhabitants of the city having raised a
tumult, said : " Whom shall we worship instead of idols ?"
Then were they told that they should fall down to the sign
of the Cross ; and so readily did they agree to this, that they
removed the Cross on to a suitable hill to the east of the town
and separated from it by a small stream ; and all bowed to
it at the morning tide, from the roofs of their houses. But
when they went over to the top of the hill, they found that
tree in an uncouth state, the work, they thought, of a very
mean and unskilled man ; and for that reason many heeded

History of the Georgian Church. 3 r
for by national prejudices. A certain inaccuracy
in dates may also be forgiven, considering the want
of books in olden times, and the necessity of hand
ing down information from father to son through
tradition. On the other hand, many authentic re
cords of great importance for the cotemporary
history of those days may have perished during

it not, saying the whole wood was full of such timber, and
treated it with no respect whatever. But God in His mercy
having looked upon their slight of that Cross, sent from
heaven a pillar of cloud, filling the wood with delicious
odours, and at the same time causing agreeable voices of
sweet music to be heard, and a light setting forth the outline
and the form of that Cross of wood which stood under it,
together with twelve stars. The Iberians, astonished at this
sight, worshipped it all with one accord, and from it received
various gifts of healing. S. Nunia then departed in order to
preach the Gospel in other provinces of Iberia, gifted as she
was with a speech simple and powerful, yet free from all
false eloquence ; and withdrawing herself from the world
and from things of the world, or rather, more correctly,
being nailed to the death of the Cross, she devoted herself to
the preaching of the word of God. I might compare her
with the Apostles, because she preached the Gospel, begin
ning from Clargor, which is near to the borders of the Alani
and of the Caspii, as Agathangel (a cotemporary Armenian
author) relates. — Moses of Chorene, lib. ii. ch. 83.

32 History of the Georgian Church.
the never-ending troubles and civil wars of Georgia.
Rufinus, also, who lived in the days of Con
stantine, and who wrote at length the conversion
of Georgia32 to the faith of Christ, declares that he
relates what he himself heard from the lips of King
Bakurius83 at Jerusalem. While historians like

22 The historian Theophanoff places the conversion of
Iberia to the Christian faith in the year 318, that is, in the
tenth year of the reign of Constantine. Baronius places it in
the year 327, and others in 335 (Johan. Funccii Comment.
in Chronologiam, lib. vi.) Du Bois, who refutes the statements
of Georgian and other writers, places, not without foundation,
the conversion of Iberia in the year 276, or a little after.
(Voyage autour du Caucase, tome ii. p. 16.)
23 Socrates, lib. i. cap. 20 ; Sozomen, lib. ii. cap. 7 ;
Theodoritus, Hist. Eccles. lib. i. cap. 24 ; and Rufinus, lib. ii.
cap. 20, whose words respecting the authenticity of his
account of the conversion of Iberia are these : " Hasc nobis ita
gesta fidelissimus vir Bacarius, gentis ipsius rex, et apud nos
Domesticorum Comes, cui summa erat cura et religionis et
veritatis, exposuit, cum nobiscum Palestini tunc limitis dux,
in Hierosolymis satis unanimiter degeret." Of the zeal of
Bakarius for the good of the Empire, writes Socrates, lib. vi.
cap. 29 ; Niceph. Coll. lib. xii. cap. 30 ; and Zozim. lib. iv.
cap. 7, who call him £|w SI vdcrns KaicoriBetas avi\p. I lately dis
covered in the library of the Cathedral of Mtzkhetha, a MS.
of Ephrem of Mt. Athos of the ninth century, containing a
narrative of the conversion of Iberia to the Christian faith.

History of the Georgian Church. 33
Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoritus, and others,
who wrote after the time of Constantine, likewise
agree with native writers and historians ; except in
this one particular, that they call S. Nina a cap
tive, mulier captiva, of the Iberians, and the king
who protected her Bakar24 (Bakurius), and not
Mirian.

14 It would seem that Bakarius, or Bakurius, who told the
conversion of Iberia to Rufinus, was not Mirian's son.

D

34 History of the Georgian Church.

CHAPTER II.
The Church of Iberia is reckoned to the Patriarchate of
Antioch — Pilgrimageof Mirian to Jerusalem — During the
reign of Bakur (Bakar) the Church spreads and triumphs
under the shadow of the Cross, over both heathens
within and enemies without — The kings Miridat and
Varaz-Bakar protect the Church — Miridat, the Iberian
Julian — Archil drives out of the Church heresies and
the worship of fire — His sainted queen Sandukhta —
Intentions of Archbishop Mobidakh against the orthodox
Faith. iHE Iberians, in receiving pastors from
Constantinople, received with them all
the rites of the Greek Church which
were coming into general use, and also admitted
the decrees of the first Qicumenic Synod. Mean
while, their Church, -only just come into existence,

History of the Georgian Church. 35
was reckoned to the Patriarchate of Antioch.1
And King Mirian, wishing to acquaint himself with
the places of the sacred events mentioned in Scrip
ture, and also to worship the newly-discovered relic,"
went, by the advice of S. Nina, to Jerusalem,
where he had an interview with the Emperor
Constantine, and begged of him the site in Jerusa
lem called Lotosa, whereon to build a convent to
the name of the Holy Cross.2
II. After his death, his son and successor Bakar
(A.D. 342 — 364), who, like his father, was zealous in
spreading the faith of Christ, caused the Gospel to
be preached a second time among all the tribes of
his kingdom ; the result of which was to add to

1 Even at present the Patriarch of Antioch is styled
" Iberian " in his title ; thus, Patriarch of the Holy City of
Antioch, Syria, Iberia, Cilicia, Mesopotamia, and of the
whole East. — Muravieff, Travels, vol. ii. p. 199.
a That is, the Cross said to have been discovered by
Helena. 2 From the Travels of the Georgian Archbishop Timothe,
or Timotheus, to the holy places (in MS.) — Muravieff, Travels,
vol. ii. p. 344, 3rd edit.
[The Travels of the Archbishop Timothe were published
in Georgian by P. Ioselian at Tiflis in 1852. — Transl.]
D 2

36 History of the Georgian Church.
the Church of Christ numbers of Ap'hkhazes, of
Caucasians, and of Khebsures." Bakar, having
raised temples everywhere, gave them in charge to
the clergy, directing these at the same time to
establish the faith, and by means of the 'kindly
precepts of heavenly teaching to soften the rude
customs and manners of the wild inhabitants of the
mountains. Without undue constraint, he himself
baptized nearly all his subjects, all of whom wil
lingly received Christian teachers. Having thus
established a general peace throughout his domin
ions under the hallowed shadow of the faith of
Christ, he bound the whole into one large family
or kingdom. With all this, however, he did not
avoid a rupture of peace and of good understanding
with the king of Persia. For, while a war from
that quarter was little to be expected, owing to the
kings of Georgia being by Bakar allied to the" then
reigning house3 of Persia, yet a war was not long

* The Khebsures inhabited the tract of country between the
Black and the White Aragwis, north of Mtzkhetha, and at
the foot of the Caucasus.
' Mirian, Bakar's father, who received the Christian faith

History of the Georgian Church. 37
in breaking out, though it were only against the
resistless influence of the name of Christ ; for it
was waged on the occasion of the Georgians having
embraced the Christian faith, and being thus fast
united with the Greeks. But the Georgians took
up arms in the name of the Faith and of the Holy
Cross, and overcame and defeated the Persians.
This first holy war ended in a triumph over the
enemy ; but how much misery followed from other
lamentable wars, ruinous to the country, and fatal
to the kingdom ! Placed as the Georgians were, on
the outskirts of the then known world, they formed
a kind of barrier against the heresies that troubled
the Greek Empire, already on the decline ; yet,
considering the freshening efforts of the fire-wor
shippers0 in the neighbouring countries, who can

and introduced it into his kingdom, was of the race of
Chosroes, and first of that line of Georgian kings. He was
brought out of Persia at the request of the Iberians, when
the royal house of P'harnabaz came to an end. At that time
Chosroes was king of Persia, and Mirian was the first of the
Sassanides on the throne of Georgia.
0 The worship of fire probably originated, but at all
events was rife, in the province of Atropatene, which ad
joined Iberia. (Moses of Chorene, lib. ii. c. 21.) It is the

38 History of the Georgian Church.
tell what the end of the kingdom of Georgia would
have been if the Persians had succeeded in stretch
ing their rule as far as the borders of the Black
Sea, and in setting up a navy, of so much import
ance to themselves? This, at least, is certain,
that the Georgians, often routed, and sometimes
enslaved, firmly and courageously kept the faith
they had once embraced. The kingdom of Georgia,
during the space of fifteen centuries, hardly pre
sents one instance of a regulation that was not
owing either to ravages, to aggression, or to cruel
affliction on the part of the enemies of Christ.
Yet those fifteen centuries of misfortune have not
weakened either the faith or the Christian endurance
of the people.
III. We read in history that, after the favourable
[ending of the war above alluded to, all the parts
present Azerbijan, and its ancient name of Atropatene may
mean either " protected by fire " or " fire-protecting," according
to whether we derive it from the loc. Athra patce, or from the
gen. Athro pdta. (Windischman, Zoroas. Stud. p. 10, seq. ;
Justi Lexicon. q. v. ; and Kleuker, Z. A. vol. i. p. 49, 53. Spiegel,
Eran, p. 60, seq.) Shahrestani, p. 175, seq., makes Zerdhasht,
or Zoroaster, a native of Azerbijan, where he is said to have
(instituted the worship of fire.

History of the Georgian Church. 39
of Iberia which, under the banner of the Cross,
had overcome the tribes of the Caucasus were
then united in the one kingdom of Iberia ; and
the king, who sat in Mtzkhetha, then became
the Sovereign of the tribes of the Caucasus, which
hitherto would none of his rule. Bakar, occupied
in organizing his country and in putting the faith
upon a firm footing, fetched from Greece, for
the further enlightenment of the nation, teachers
and instructors, that might lay the foundation of
schools in which the Greek and the Syriac lan
guages should be taught. He singled out the Greek
language from among the languages of the country
for the service of God, and he ordered the transla
tion of many religious books into the native dialects ;
he adorned divers temples already existing, and him
self built others, generally in places celebrated for
great gatherings in the dark ages of heathenism.
Thus, for instance, he built a temple on the site of
one formerly sacred to the gods Armaz and Zaden.*

4 Until the days of Christianity the religion of the Iberians
was heathen. Their idols were Armaz (Hormazd), Zaden
(Izida?), Gats, Gaim, A'inan, and Danain. Moses of

40 History of the Georgian Church.
He appointed bishops for the greater increase of
the faith, by means of a closer and more careful
inspection ; and, wishing to do his utmost for the
beautifying of temples, and for the edification of
Divine worship, he introduced chanting, according
to the Greek metre.5 He is generally acknowleged
to have founded the eparchy of Tsilcan,d and to
have built the temple of that place in honour of
the B. V. Mary, so celebrated in the times that
Chorene mentions also the idol Bagan as being worshipped
by the Georgians, and agrees with Hercules, cap. xxx. King
Rew, having married a Greek woman, set up on the heights
of Mtzkhetha a statue of Aphrodite. In the course of time
fire-worship was introduced into Iberia, and continued there,
more or less, until it was put a stop to in Persia.
5 The Georgian Church music and hymns bear a great
similarity to the pathetic melodies of Greece. It is at present
fallen off, because there is no choral music in the Georgian
Church. In the Georgian song there are no syllables with
out meaning, such as avov, avov, in the Greek, at the end of
words. — See Theory of Music, De Kalve, vol. ii. p. 96.
4 Aman aghashena ecclesia Tsilcnisa, " He built the
church of Tsilcan," is the only information the Karthlis
Tskhovr. give us on the subject (at p. 101, under the reign
of Bakar, or Bakurius). But Wakhusht (Gheoghr. p. 214)
adds that this church, built with a cupola, is the residence of
the Bishop of Mukhran, of the Black and of the White
Aragwis and of Bozateth.

History of the Georgian Church. 41
followed, and even now renowned for miracles6 and
for the tomb of Iese, Bishop of Tsilcan, one of the
thirteen Fathers who came from Syria.
IV. The Church, so lately planted, enjoyed entire
peace during the reign of Miridat, successor of
Bakar, as well as in the days of the third Arch
bishop, Jacob, named John, and afterwards Job,
by birth an Armenian, and deacon of the Armenian
Archbishop Nerses I.* The building in Imereth ol
the cathedral of Khoni,6 celebrated even at present,

e Wakhusht (p. 214) states that S. Iso of Tsilcan (called
Ise or Issei by our author), Tqwilianidam tsarmoigho
qawardjnis threwith ra, romelsa mosdeoda amushacoth
tsqali, do moigho Tsilcans, drew out from Tqwilian a furrow
with his crosier, which water followed forthwith ; water was
thus by him brought to Tsilcan, and flows there to this day.
This circumstance is related differently below at Chapter IV.,
where it is said of the river Ksan.
» This Nerses L, or Nerses the Great, was Archbishop in
the third year of Arsaces. He was son of Athanak son of
Husig, who was the son of Verthan himself son of S. Gregory.
His history is told at length by Moses of Chorene, lib. iii.
c. 20, and by Michael Tchamtchean, vol. i. p. 134, 135, seq.
See also, for an account of Bishop Jacob or Job, Karthlis
Tskhovr. p. 102.
6 This is probably the temple of Onogur, mentioned by
Agathias I. iii. p. 77.

42 History of the Georgian Church.
and that of numerous churches in other parts of
the kingdom that completed the establishing and
confirming the provinces of Clarjeth and of
Djavakhet in the faith," was due entirely to the
pious zeal of Miridat III., worthy son of Bakar. But
this happy state of things was soon disturbed,
through the negligence of his successor, Varaz-Bakar
(A.D. 379 — 393). An attack from the Persians,
called forth probably by the conduct of Bishop
Abda, who, having set fire to the chief heathen
temple in Persia, refused to rebuild it, and the
breaking asunder, from some unknown cause, of
the bond of union with the Greeks, were followed
by the laying waste of Iberia by the Greek Em
peror Theodosius, who required and took hostages
from the nation. The peace of the Church and of

[This cathedral of Khoni, west of Khuthais, was the residence
of the Bishop of Wace. It was formerly dependent on the
Archbishop of Karthli ; but, after the separation of Karthli
from Imereth, this church had a bishop of its own.— Wakhusht,
Gheoghr. p. 354.
The Karthlis Tskhovreba says (at p. 102) of Miridat, that
" agkashenna Ecclesiani he built churches " in Clarjeth and
elsewhere, but does not mention the church of Khoni in par
ticular. — Transl.]

History of the Georgian Church. 43
the kingdom was again renewed at the instance of
Archbishop Elias, who purchased it of the Persians
at the price of gold.
V. But the vicissitudes of the Church increased
when, after King P'harsman, who had restored the
temples destroyed by the Persians, and confirmed
boththefaith and the kingdom, Miridat I V.,who knew
neither how to do well nor how to repent, ascended
the throne of Iberia. He had despised the faith of
his own nation, and purposed to follow in the steps
of Julian ; but God, who had exposed his faithful
people to a trial of their faith, and who out of great
misfortunes brings forth happiness for men, allowed
the Persians to invade Iberia and to take possession
of the country ; and He thus, on the one hand, put
a stop to the persecution the Church endured, and,
on the other hand, He laid the foundation of the
greatness, of the glory, and of the power that
distinguished the following reigns of Archil and
of Wakhtang Gorhaslan.
VI. Archil (A.D. 413 — 446), son of Miridat IV, did
not imitate his father's vices ; but he rooted out the
remains of heathenism, and purified the religion
from all mixture of heresies and of. heathenish

44 History of the Georgian Church.
customs ; he expelled the fire-worshippers, and
turned their temple into a Christian church and
house of prayer ; and he happily ended a war
begun by the Persians at the instigation of their
Magi, and of other followers of fire-worship in
Iberia. With the Bishop's blessing, he married
a woman of another religion, who was called
Sandukhta, and whom he converted to the Chris
tian faith.B For her sake, and for her own
especial use, was the New Testament then for
the first time translated into the Georgian lan-

g Our author gives a different account from that found in
the Karthlis Tskhovreba, vol. i. p. 109, seq., where we read
that Barzabod, Eris-thaw of Qarabag (Rani), did not, like
other petty princes of those parts, oppose King Archil, but
continued on a friendly footing with him. This Barzabod
had a remarkably handsome daughter, called Sagdukht, of
whom Mirdat, Archil's son, became enamoured. He requested
his father to ask Barzabod to give her to him in marriage,
and Archil did so ; Barzabod then gave his daughter to
Mirdat, who was then made by his father Eris-thaw of
Samshwilde, where he resided with Sagdukht, and for whose
sake he fetched men learned in the Greek and Georgian
languages, who translated the New Testament for the use of
Sagdukht, Archil's daughter-in-law, and not wife, as P.
Ioselian states.

History of tJte Georgian Church. 45
guage.7 Being deeply affected with the truths

? The books used for Divine service in the churches of
Georgia were read in Greek in the first beginning of Chris
tianity. Afterwards several of them were translated into
Georgian in schools established by Greek preachers, wherein
the Greek language was taught with the view of establishing
the services of the Church on the primitive rules of Chris
tianity, indispensable in a country just converted from
heathenism. It was probably about this time, when schools
were founded, that lived the first translators of Holy Scripture
from the Assyrian (Syriac) tongue and of Church books
from the Greek. They had studied at Jerusalem, probably
under the protection of the Georgian prince Tatian, who, in
the fifth century, built there a monastery., This circum
stance, however, which is not noticed by historians, does not
prevent us from reckoning among the translators of Holy
Scripture, and of all Church books from the Greek into
Georgian, Euthymius and Georgius Sviatogorets, who lived
in the xiith century, and who wrote in a style pure, well
rounded, and flowing, which is held hitherto as a pattern
of literature, both sacred and secular. The necessity of
having Church books for the use of Divine service in the
churches of Iberia would not prevent the kings of Georgia
from providing the Church, at an earlier period, with books
intended to establish the people in the faith and in good
works ; even though this be not noticed by native writers.
Georgian historians ascribe the invention of Georgian
letters to King P'harnabaz I., cotemporary of Alexander the
Great. According to Moses of Chorene, however, the
Georgian alphabet was invented by the learned Mesrob,

46 History of the Georgian Church.
of the Gospel, she built in Mtzkhetha a temple to
the memory of the proto-martyr S. Stephen, and
called it Sion.8 But she gave yet greater proof
Who came into Iberia during the reign of King Archil
(a.d. 413 — 446), and who, together with Zalei, a man learned
in the Armenian and Greek languages, fixed the Georgian
alphabet of thirty-eight letters. Both the king of Georgia,
whom Moses of Chorene calls Bakar, and Bishop Moses
contributed to it. Mesrob intrusted the school which
he had founded and divided into two parts to professors
of his own, Khortsnenski and Moses Taronenski, and
himself went into Albania to the king thereof, Arzval,
and to Bishop Jeremiah. It is most probable that until
that time the Church service was performed in Greek in the
Churches of Iberia, as well, indeed, as in Armenia (Mos. of
Chor. lib. iii. c. 54). The Georgian characters are twofold —
civil and ecclesiastical. Some people doubt the existence
of the civil characters even in the xivth century, because
they nowhere appear, either on ancient coins or on monu
ments. But their similarity in form to the Sanscrit cha
racters (Devanagari) was already remarked by Antekil
(Anquetil ?). A curious comparison of them may be seen in
Elements de la Langue Georgienne, par M. Brosset : Paris,
1838, pp. 6—8.
8 Temples without cupolas are by the Georgians called
Sions. But at first this name was also given to temples of
God dedicated to the assumption of the B. V. Mary, and
copied from the like temple at Jerusalem, existing at Geth-
semane ; and so much the more as the B. V. Mary is by the
Prophets mysteriously mentioned as Sion.

History of the Georgian Church. 47
of her zeal for the Christian religion and for
orthodox principles when she determined to defend
the Church against the fatal intentions of Arch
bishop Mobidakh, a Persian by birth.
VII. This false teacher, pretending to be a faithful
Christian, fain would make an evil use of his
ecclesiastical power, and change ceremonies and
institutions in the rites and in the hierarchy of the
Church, withal preaching Arianism, which in those
days was fast overspreading the East, under the
protection of the Emperor Valens, who was addicted
to that heresy. Hiding a wicked heart under the
mask of religion, Mobidakh persecuted the clergy
under the pretence of misconduct on their part, and
cut asunder from union with the Church all sin
cerely orthodox men. At last, and feigning to act
as pastor of his flock, he made openly known his
meaning and doctrine in a letter which he pub
lished for general reading. But Bishop Michael,
encouraged in this work by the pious queen, un
masked Mobidakh, as an enemy of the Church,
and had him deposed by the Synod which was
sitting at that very time. He consigned to the
flames Mobidakh's letter, and to anathema his

48 History of the Georgian Church.
teaching, and then re-established the former rites
of the Church approved and sanctioned by the
Church of Antioch. Then was the chair of Arch
bishop Mobidakh occupied by Michael, who was
a Greek.

History of the Georgian Church. 49

CHAPTER III.
Fire-worship in Iberia — The martyr Rajden — Weakening of
Christianity among the hill-tribes of the Caucasus — Sad
invasion of the Iberian Church by heresies — Good deeds
of King Wakhtang Gorhaslan — The Church of Iberia
takes the title of Independent {avTOK4<paAos) — The first
Catholicos thereof, and his rule.
fAKHTANG I. (A.D. 446—449) was only
seven years old when his father died.
The queen, his mother, renowned for
her wisdom and for her piety, who had incurred
the enmity of the Persians and of their king her
father, only to protect the Christian faith, found
herself at last obliged to allow the worship of fire
in her dominions, with the sanction of the Arch
bishop Michael, who, as we saw, had been fetched
E

SO History of the Georgian Church.
from Greece into Georgia. As the preaching of
the Christian faith prevailed among the people, the
fire-worshippers from the first made little progress.
Then the conversion to the faith of Christ of one
of the Persian Magi, by name Rajden, and his
patient endurance of a cruel death at the hands of
his countrymen, who, says the learned Bishop
Nicolas, nailed him naked to a cross and tore him
in pieces, had a good influence and led the people
to profess the Christian faith. The earthly remains
of that martyr were laid in the cathedral of Nikozi,a
and the Georgian Church1 keeps the 3rd of August
to his memory.

" Nikoz, or Nikozi, with a beautiful church built by
Wakhtang Gorhaslan, on the Great Liakhwi, north of the
Kur, in the district of Sawakhtango, in Karthli. In that
church were the relics of S. Rajden laid. There are two
towns of the same name, not far from each other ; one on
the left, the other on the right bank of the Great Liakhwi.
— Wakh. Gheoghr. p. 252.
1 The Georgian Church commemorates the following
saints : —
Jan. 8. S. Abo.
„ 14. S. Nina the Illuminatress.
„ 19. S. Antoni of Martkop'h.

History of the Georgian Church. 5 1
II. But that act of cruelty on the part of the

Jan. 26. S. David III., king of Georgia, and defender of
the Faith.
S. Sukhi, martyr, and his kinsmen.
S. John Zedasni, and the thirteen Fathers who
came with him from Syria.
S. Shio of Mgvim. ,
Euthymius of Mt. Athos.
S. David and Taritchan.
S. Archil and Suarsab, kings and martyrs.
S. George of Mt. Athos.
S. John and Gabriel.
S. Eustathius of Mtzkhetha.
S. Rajden.
S. Shushanika.
S. Ketevasia, queen.
S. Joseph of Alaverd.
S. Isaac and Joseph.
S. Birdzina and two brothers, ShalvaandElizbara.
Commemoration of the miracles wrought by our
Saviour's coat.
S. David and Constantine.
S. Gregory of Chandzoi.
Neophyte, priest and martyr.
Day to the martyr S. George.
S. Constantine, martyr.
S. Michael of Gobron.
S. Hilarion.
S. Aviv, Bishop of Necres.
S. Ise of Tsilkan.
E 2

April

IS-

May

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V

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13-

»

18.

June

21.

jj

27.

July

12.

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29.

Aug.

3-

•»

28.

Sept.

13-

»

15-

r>

16.

»

18.

Oct.

1.

?»

2.

»

5-

»

28.

Nov.

10.

»

17-

5>

19.

)>

29.

Dec.

2.

$2 History of the Georgian Church.
Persians tended to weaken the faith in the distant
parts of the mountain range of the Caucasus. Those
mountaineers, having forgotten the unity of faith,
invaded and laid waste Karthalinia ; but the king,
at that time a mere youth, felt in himself sufficient
strength to oppose the arrogance of man, and went
forth to battle in faith and with courage. Armed
in the name of the' Cross of Christ, together with
orthodox nations, and assured of a speedy victory
by the prayers of Michael, he sallied forth and
severely chastised the traitors. And, on the rup
ture of good understanding with the Greek em
perors, he turned his arms against the Greeks, and
succeeded in wresting from them the province of
Clarjeth, which of yore was peopled by Iberians,

In addition to these feasts, the Georgian Church ob
serves : —
i. The Thursday of Shrove- week, in honour of Shio of
Mgvim. 2. The Tuesday in Holy Week, to the holy brethren of
the desert of Davido-Garedj, put to death by Shah-Abbas.
3. The Wednesday of the seventh week after Easter, in
honour of S. Dodo.
4. The Thursday of that same week, in honour of David
of Garedj.

History of the Georgian Church. 53
but which had for some time formed part of the
Eastern Empire. Meanwhile, this withdrawal of
the Caucasian tribes from under the Greek rule
was not altogether favourable to the faith. Chris
tianity, when first planted among them, was not
nourished and maintained by duly appointed
pastors ; so that, from the first, it gradually grew
weaker and weaker, until it perished altogether, by
reason of the Georgians not always being able to
maintain their own independence, much less to
bring into subjection those wild mountain tribes.
So that all that now remains of the light of Chris
tianity once spread over those mountain fastnesses
of the Caucasus are the ruins, here and there, of
ancient churches, the name and memory of the
prophet Elijah, the knowledge of the most Holy
Trinity, and the keeping of certain fasts.3

2 On the mountains of Ossetia, and in other mountain
passes, are seen to this day the ruins of ancient churches.
The thick forests and the rugged cliffs on the mountains of
the Ap'hkhazes of Suanetia and of Ossetia are full of such
relics of the Faith that once prevailed, for which the moun
taineers of to-day still entertain a feeling of respect. The
Ossetinians in general, show respect for the churches of the

54 History of the Georgian Church.
III. The Iberian Church, having preserved entire
dependence from the Patriarch of Antioch, received
all the rites and ceremonies of the Greek Church,
and carefully kept herself in union with her. As,
for instance, on the occasion of the introduction of
the Trisagion by Proclus, Patriarch of Constanti
nople, in 433. So also on the first appearance of
the Eutychian heresy, Peter Phyllon, alias Gnathius,
not minding the synod of Chalcedon, constrained
with imprecations the Church of Iberia to receive

Holy Archangel Michael in the pass of Trusov, of the B. V.
Mary in Zakkhnisk, of S. George in Iamur, &c. They tell
of the miracles which themselves witnessed, and keep the
Christian festivals. Contracts or feuds between families at
enmity with each other are usually terminated at the time
of the Church festivals. They observe devoutly and rigor
ously the fast before Christmas, and the whole of Lent.
They know the days of Palm Sunday, of Easter Day, of the
Annunciation, of S. George, the name of the prophet Elijah,
&c. The Aph'khazes who inhabit the shores of the Black Sea
celebrate three days at Easter, and make use of painted eggs;
the day of the descent of the Holy Ghost, and the 25th day
of December as Christmas. The ruins of ancient churches
are by them respected as places consecrated and set apart
to God, and even as places of common resort, as of yore
the tomb of Karthlos on the hills of Karthli was for the
Georgians.

History of the Georgian Church. 55
the Trisagion ; but this innovation was thrown out
by the synod, and the Iberian Church stood by
her former order. And, notwithstanding the falling
away of some Armenians from union with the
Eastern Church, and the increase of heterodox
teachers — as, for instance, of Acephalites, of
Severites, and of Phyllonists, and of other heretics
all over Asia — the Iberians abstained from all change
in rites and in ceremonies opposed to those of the
orthodox Church.
IV. King Wakhtang, led by zeal for the Christian
faith, and for orthodoxy, travelled with his family
to Jerusalem, in order to worship at the sepulchre of
our Lord. At or near the Holy City he built a
convent, which for a long time remained in the
hands of Georgians ; then he left there, for the pro
tection of the holy places, a few Georgian soldiers,
who thenceforward, and unto the present day, live
around Jerusalem and on the Euphrates; and
he even forgot his own tongue in order to speak
Arabic. With the intention, also, of dividing Iberia into
bishoprics, and of enlightening the nation by insti
tutions in every one of their schools, Wakhtang

56 History of' the Georgian Church.
called to himself bishops and teachers from Greece ;
but having once, in a fit of anger, been offended at
his instructor, the Archbishop Michael, who opposed
his will, he sent him to Constantinople for judgment.
There Michael was shut up in a convent by the
Patriarch Gennadius, who sent in his place to King
Wakhtang the Archbishop Peter> with the title of
Catholicos of all Iberia, and with the whole power
of an independent ruler of the Church (avToicefyaXoi)?
Through the care of this new pastor the clergy was
increased, priests were appointed in every town and
village for the confirmation of the Gospel among
the Ap'hkhazes and among the Mingrelians, inha-

3 Balsamon, on the Synod of Constantinople, R. II. — "Lata
siquidem tempore sanctissimi patriarchs magnae Antiochiae
Petri synodali constitutione sancitum fuisse liberam esse ac
principalem wl airoKitpaKos ecclesiam Iberia?, sed tamen
Antiocheno patriarchae subjectam." — Codinus, in Notit. Graec.
Episcopatuum, p. 364, writes : — " Quartus Sanctissimus et
Apostolicus thronus Anthiochae et Patriarchicus — complectens
versus ortum solis iter Ixxxvi dierum — versus Iberiam et
Abasgiam — Persas, Medos— comprehendit Iberiam, quam
honoravit Anthiochenas Synodi dijudicatio, cum illi antea
fuit subjecta : horum enim Antistites a propriis Episcopis
ordinati solebant." — Matthei Mon. sive Blastaris Syntagma
Alphabet, lit E.

History of the Georgian Church. 57
bitants of the northern and of the eastern slopes of
the Caucasus; by his order were ecclesiastical works
that had been mutilated through copying collated
afresh, and others translated from the Greek, and
added to those already belonging to the Church ;
schools were founded in connection with the Church ;
and in the place of the old temple, built by Mirian
in Mtzkhetha, a new one of stone was erected, of a
large size, and surrounded by high stone walls ; and
twelve bishoprics were established in Karthalinia,
twelve in Kakheth, nine in Somkheth, and two in
Imereth. V. We do not, at present, know exactly what was
that Eparchy. Episcopius, who wrote in the last
century, gives the following order of this hier
archy : —
1. Catholicos of Mtzkhetha* 1. Catholicos of Ap'hkhazeth.0
and of all Georgia.

b Mtzkhetha, between the Aragwi and the Kur, ancient
capital of Georgia, before Tiflis became the seat of govern
ment ; see above, chap. i. p. 140.
Ap'hkhazeth, one of the districts of Imereth, also called
Egris; whence Meegreli, Mingrelia.

58 History of the Georgian Church.
2. Archbishop of Somkheth.4 2. Archbishop of Djqon-Did.K
3. Archbishop of Mtzkhetha. 3. Archbishop of Alaverd."
4. Bishop of Matskur.0 4. Archbishop of Bodbe".1
5. Bishop of Kumurdo.* 5. Bishop of Ninotsminda."

4 Somkhethi is a district of South Karthli, situated between
the rivers Debeda and Kezia.
e I can find no mention of Matskur anywhere. — [Transl.]
f The church of Cumurdo, built by the messengers of
Constantine to King Mirian, is situated in Djawakhethi,
between the Djawakhetis-Mtcwari and the small lake into
which falls the river Phoso. It was the seat of the
Bishop of Djawakheth, above Kherthwis. — Wakh. Gheoghr.
p. 98.
g Dchqon-Did, or Great Dchqond, on the river Tchenis-
tsqali, with the church of Martwira, was built by Georgi,
VHIth king of Imereth, who made it a bishopric. — Wakh.
Gheoghr. p. 394.
h Alaverd, Alawerd, and Alaberd, is the name of a large
church and monastery on the river Alan, in Sakheth. It
was built by Ioseb or Joseph, one of the thirteen Fathers,
who made it a convent. It was made a bishopric, and
destroyed by an earthquake, and then rebuilt by King Rostom
and by Archil. — Wakh. Gheoghr. p. 318.
1 Bodbe, as we have already seen, is the church and con
vent in Sakheth where S. Nina lived, died, and is now
buried. k Nino-Tsminda, or S. Nina, church, monastery, and
bishopric in the Gareth-Sakheth. — Wakh. Gheoghr. p. 480.

History of the Georgian Church. 59
6. Bishop of Ishkhan.1 6. Bishop of Antshi."
7. Bishop of Mtbevel. 7. Bishop of Tsartskuma.0
8. Bishop of Tskaros-Tav.m 8. Bishop of Erushathi.*
9. Bishop of Gangi, 9. Bishop of Tsin-tsqaro.11

1 Ishkhan was a strong city of Clarjeth on the Ishkhan-
tsqali (river of Ishkhan), and near the Djorokh. There
resided, near a large and beautiful church, the Bishop of
Ispira, of Thorthom, of Baiburd, and of the hilly country as
far as Trebizond. — Wakh. Gheoghr. p. 114.
m Tsqaros-thaw is a church built by Mirdat, on the river
Phoso, in Djawakheth, and made the residence of the bishop
of that part of the country. — Wakh. Gheoghr. p. 98.
n Antchis, or Antchis-khat, is the name of a large and
beautiful church, the seat of the Catholicos, at Tiflis. It was
restored by the Catholicos Domenti, son of Kaikhosro. —
Wakh. Gheoghr. p. 188.
0 Tsurtsquma, a town of the Samtzkhe", with a large
church, once the residence of a bishop. — Wakh. Gheoghr.
p. 88.
v The Erushathi is a district of the Samtzkhe", between the
Erushethis-mtha and the Arsianis-mtha. At Nakalakew is
a beautiful church built by an ambassador of Constantine at
the emperor's expense. In it was a nail of our Saviour's
cross deposited ; and it became afterwards the residence of
the Bishop of Erushethi. — Wakh. Gheoghr. p. 104.
a There is a small town called Tsin-tsqaro near the river
Algeth, in Karthli, between the Ktzia and the Kur or
Mtcwar ; but it is not said to have been a bishopric. —
Wakh. Gheoghr. p. 174.

60 History of the Georgian Church.,
10. Bishop of Rustav.r 10. Bishop of Urbnis. s
n. Bishop of Katsari. ii. Bishop of Samthawis.'
12. Bishop of Mrovel. 12. Bishop of Bolnis.™
13. Bishop of Nikozi. 13. Bishop of Anio.
14. Bishop of Valasgird. 14. Bishop of Tiflis.1

r Rusthaw, now Boston-kalab, or Nageb, a fortified city of
Karthli, was first built by Karthlos's queen. Afterwards
Tiridat, XXVI 1 1 th king, built therein a handsome church,
and Wakhtang Gorhaslan made it an episcopal residence.
^-Wakh. Gheoghr. p. 180.
s Urbnis, in Karthli, was built, as we have already seen,
by Uphlos, son of Karthlos. It became the residence of the
bishop of the lands watered by the great Liakhwi. — Wakh.
Gheoghr. p. 258.
1 Samthawis, church built by Isidore", one of the thirteen
Fathers, who is buried in it. It is situated to the east of
the river Rekhula, and is the residence of the bishop of the
vale of the Ksant of the Rekhula. — Wakh. Gheoghr. p. 242.
a Bolnis, small town of Karthli, on the banks of the Phola-
dur, with a church built by P'harsman, XXIXth king of
Georgia, and made a bishopric by Wakhtang Gorhaslan.
The Bishop of Bolnis has the charge of the Karthli Somk-
hethi, or Georgian Armenia. — Wakh. Gheoghr. pp. 144, 145.
* Tiflis, or rather Tp'hilis, on the Mtcwari, or Kur, was
built by Wakhtang Gorhaslan, and made a royal residence
by Datchi, XXXIVth king of Georgia. It consists of three
towns, Tiflis, Cala, and Isni, or Nisani, separated from each
other by the Kur, and by other streams. It contains several
fine churches, such as S. George, the Holy Trinity, the

History of t lie Georgian Church. 61
15. Bishop of Krel. 15- Bishop of Tsalka.8
16. Bishop of Khardshasho.y 16. Bishop of Dmani.
17. Bishop of Bana.z 17. Bishop of Gishel.
18. Bishop of Tsherminsk.
19. Bishop of Daban.4

Transfiguration, the Raising of the Cross, &c, and is the
seat of a Catholicos, and of an archimandrite. For further
particulars, see Wakhusht Gheoghr. pp. 184 and 185 of transl.
et seq.
* The church of Khardshasho, on the White Aragwi, in
Northern Sakhethi, was the seat of a bishop of the surrounding
district. — Wakh. Gheoghr. p. 294.
* Bana or Phanac, a town of Samtskhe, and once a
bishopric. — Wakh. Gheoghr. p. 118. Now in ruins.
"Tsalca, town and bishopric on the banks of the Ktzia, in
Karthli. There resides the Bishop of Trialeth. — Wakh.
Gheoghr. p. 160.
4 King Wakhtang could not institute more than two
bishops in Imereth, because it was then under Greek rule,
and the Greek patriarchs provided with bishops the parts
which they colonized in Colchis and on the shores of the
Black Sea. The two Eparchies set on foot by Wakhtang in
Imereth were probably in the districts now called Ratchni
and the land of the Likhi — mountainous parts of Imereth,
bounded by Karthalinia, and never under the Greek emperors ;
for in these places there is not even a trace left of either the
Roman or of the Greek rule. At the end of the ixth and at
the beginning of the xth century, when the Greek influence
ceased altogether both in Colchis, and the kings of Georgia

62

History of the Georgian Church,

came into possession of all the remnants of Greek civiliza
tion, then, instead of the Eparchies established by the
Greeks — viz., Rhodopolis (now Vartsikha), Petra (Utchinara,
a fortified city of the Emperor Justinian, built in 530),
Phasida (now Pota), and Zigane (a fortified city, probably
in Kobyleta, now belonging to Turkey) — the following Epar
chies appear to have been founded : —

1. Dandar.
2. Mokvi.
3. Belia.
4. Tchaishi.
5. Tcheleshi.
6. Martvili.
7. Tkvatchi.

8. Ippuria.
9. Khopi.
10. Sevastopol.
11. Anaklia.
12. Tsageri.
13. Shemokmedi.
14. Djamadi.

15. Djakvi.
16. Khoni.
17. Nikortsminda.
18. Genati.
19. Kutais, &c.

Basilius, Bishop of the Caucasus, was present at the Synod
of Constantinople, summoned by the Emperor Andronicus
Paleologus, A.D. 1282 — 1328. Oriens Christ, torn. i. p. 1325,
protesting against the book of Dositheus, Patriarch of Jeru
salem ; De Patriarch. Hierosolym. lib. xii. cap. 11, par. 10.
It is not known at present where was the seat of the Bishop
of the Caucasus.
All these Eparchies existed until the beginning of the
xviiith century. Thirty-three bishoprics thus existing in
Karthalinia, Kakheth, and Samkheth can alone account for
the faith of martyrs and confessors triumphing over the untold
vicissitudes of those times, and outliving the incursions of
the Turks and of the Persians ; and, worse still, the scandal
created by the kings of Georgia, willingly or unwillingly,
turning Mahomedans and opposing Christianity for two
hundred years in the course of the xvith and xviith centuries.

History of the Georgian Church. 63
These bishoprics, established in the vaivods or
palatinats of Georgia, were dependent on the Catho
licos, who took the title of Catholicos of Mtzkhetha
and of Iberia. The Catholicos governed the acts
of the Church without having to give account to any
of the four patriarchs ; at all events, history is silent
as to whether or not the Greek patriarchs exercised
any influence over the doings of the Church of
Georgia after the days of P'harsmanIII.,who severed
her from under Greek authority about A.D. 556.
But, in consequence of this separation from the rule
of the Greek patriarchate, and of this independence
as a Catholicate, which was not only complete, but,
so write historians, was wrought out with the con
sent of Eutychius, Patriarch of Constantinople, and
of the Emperor Justinian, an inevitable estrange
ment and other inconveniences happened in this
Church thus cut off from Constantinople and from
Antioch, and divided by the jealousies of nations at
enmity with one another. Yet, on the other hand,

On the other hand, the kings of Imereth never changed
their faith, however much oppressed they might be by the
Turks.

64 History of the Georgian Church.
we find that on several important occasions the
Catholicos of Iberia often referred to the patriarchs
of the Greek Church, and submitted to the judg
ment of the Cficumenic Church all that which for
good government required the sanction of the
synod.

History of the Georgian Church. 65

CHAPTER IV.
Arrival in Iberia of thirteen Fathers from Syria— Places
where they fixed their abode — Conversion of the Lazes
to the Gospel — Building of a Church in Bitshvinta
(Pitiunta) by the Greeks — Conversion of the Ap'hkhazes
to the Gospel.
{HE reign of P'harsman (A.D. 541-555),
writes Wakhusht,1 was remarkable by
the arrival in Iberia of tKrte^i cham- /
pions of the Faith from Syria. Even the Iberians
themselves were obliged to admit the mysterious
call from Heaven to those men to come into Iberia,
1 The arrival of the thirteen Fathers from Syria into Georgia
is, not without good reason, placed in the year 445. But I
follow the chronology of Wakhusht in my narrative of that
event.

66 History of the Georgian Church.
when these defenders of the Faith, thus miraculously
brought, entered Mtzkhetha after having crossed the
river dry-shod, and when they began to preach peace
and the word of God in the Iberian tongue, to the
astonishment of the wondering people, of the king,
and of the Catholicos Eulabius himself. Georgian
historians have preserved the names of all these
men, and the lives of some of them. They were :
(i) Ioane, or John, the chief, and teacher of all the
others; (2) Abib, Aviv, or Abibos; (3) Antoni;
(4) Dawith; (5) Zenon; (6) Thathe, or Thaddaeus;
(7) Ise, or Jesse; (8) Ioseb, or Joseph; (9) Isidore;
(10) Michael; (11) Piros; (12) Stephanes; (13) Shio;
and (14) the Deacon Elias, constant fellow-traveller
of John. These men, sent to the Eparchs with
directions from the king and from the Catholicos,
chose for their residence places suited to the
preaching of the Gospel, and to the teaching of
the people, thus : — ¦
1. Ioane, or John, the oldest of them all, settled
on the rugged hill of Zedadzen,8, covered with thick

a Zedadzen is the name of a mountain of Sakhethi to the
east of Mtzkhetha, on which meothkhe mep'he-man P'harnad-

History of the Georgian Church. 67
forests, not far from the town of Mtzkhetha. After
pulling down the remains of heathen temples at
that place, that champion of the Faith shed forth
from his narrow cell the gifts of God's blessing on
the people that came to him. His sainted life and
miracles are still commemorated by the Georgian
Church on the 7th of May. After his death a
church was built in his name on that same spot,
the ruins of which subsist to this day.
2. Aviv, or Abibos o* Necres, who, at the request
of the Catholicos and of the king, accepted the
office of Bishop and the Chair of Necres,b reduced

jotn aghashena tzikhi", da agh7nartha mun kerpi Zadeni, da
amitha etsoda mthasa amas Zeda-Zadeni, the IVth king,
P'harnadjom, built a citadel, and also set up the idol Zaden,
whence the mountain was called Zeda-Zaden {i.e., on which is
Zaden). Later, Ioane, one of the thirteen Fathers, built there
a convent and a church. The water which trickles from the
roof of it is said to cure diseases. (Wakh. Gheoghr. p. 300.)
The Karthl. Tskhovr. does not give so many details, but
simply says that P'harnadjom built several cities, da aman
aghashena tzikhe Zadeni da shekmna kerpi sakhelith Zaden,
and he built the citadel of Zaden, and made the idol called
Zaden. — Karthl. Tskhovr. vol. i. pp. 34 and 152, et seq.
* Necresi, in Sakhethi, was built by P'harnadjom. Tiridat
built there a church, where resided S. Abib, one of the thirteen
F 2

68 History of the Georgian Church.
the number of fire-worshippers through the con
version of many of them to the light of the Gospel,
and brought back to the Faith the inhabitants of
the Caucasus, and those of that region who had
fallen back from Christianity to heathenism.
But, by the sleight of the chief of the fire-wor
shippers, Aviv was seized, stoned to death, and his
body cast for food to wild beasts and to birds of
prey, near the village of Rekha,0 about thirty versts
from the city of Goria.a The remains of that holy
martyr, which were at first buried nigh unto the
place of his martyrdom, were afterwards taken up
by the ruling prince Stephen, son of King Adarnas,
and then laid, with great pomp and ceremony, in
the cathedral of Mtzkhetha, where they are yet
devoutly worshipped. The feast of that martyr is

Fathers, who became Bishop of Ghoghma-Mkari and of the
Didoethi. He was put to death by the Persians, and is buried
at Samthawro. — Wakh. Gheoghr. p. 314, and Karthlis
Tskhovr. p. 151.
c Rekha is a small town in Middle Karthli, north of the
Kur. From it the river Rekhula receives its name. — Wakh.
Gheoghr. p. 242.
* Gori, to the east of Up'hlis-Tzikhe, so called from a high
mountain (Gora) in the neighbourhood. — Wakh. p. 244.

History of the Georgian Church, 69
held by the Church of Georgia on the 9th of
November. 3. Antoni, or Antonius, settled on the wooded
hills of Martqop'h,6 and from that solitude he got
the name of Martqofh the Hermit. After living a
long time unknown, he was, at last, discovered by
stag-hunters on those mountains, subsisting on
doe's milk and seated on a pillar, struggling with life.
A church was afterwards built on that spot, and, in
place of the pillar, they set up on that hill, to the
memory of the saint, another pillar which is now in
ruins. The Georgian Church keeps in memory ol
Antoni the 19th of January and the 16th of August.
These feasts are celebrated with great pomp and
solemnity ; they bring together even Armenians

6 Martqop'h, between the range of Lito and of Sakheth, in
Sakhethi. There is the large church of Ghwthaeba, where
S. Antoni dwelt. His whole life was spent in a cave in the
neighbourhood. He called the place Marto-?nqop'hi (living
alone), and hence the whole solitude was called Martqop'h.
Later, Rusthaw having been destroyed, the bishop thereof
came to reside at Ghwthaeba, with the title of Rasthaweli,
without interfering with the Bishop of Martqop'h. The life
of S. Antoni is told at length in Karthlis Tskhovr. vol. i,
p. 156, et seq. — Wakh. Gheoghr. p. 302, et seq.

70 History of the Georgian Church.
and other heterodox Christians. Until the year
1760 the hill of Martqop'h was inhabited by hermits,
who were then driven away by the incursions of the
Lezghians. 4. Dawith, or David, was the founder of the
hermitage of Garedj/ thus named from his solitary
life,3 and renowned, until 1780, for the number of

f Garedj, or Garedj io-mtha, is a range of mountains that
separate the Karthli from the Sakhethi, to the east of the
Kur. The whole district was inhabited by monks living
either in caves or in monasteries, several of which are still
celebrated — such as Nathlis-mtzemel (S. John the Baptist),
Tchitchikour, Dawith-Garedja, &c. It has also several
fine churches and ancient paintings. That residence for
hermits was founded by Dawith, one of the thirteen Fathers.
— Wakh. Gheoghr. p. 180, et seq., and Karthlis Tskhovr.
p. 152, etseq.
• Persian magi, or priests of fire-worship, were then in
Georgia, and had their temples until Iberia embraced Chris
tianity, as also in the part of Cappadocia adjoining Iberia,
according to Basilius, ambassador to Epiphanius in 325.
One of these fire-temples, laid in ruins, by time and by the
hand of destruction which nearly laid waste Tiflis, is yet to
be seen in that city.
3 From the Georgian expression gare sdja, that means, to
sit or reside apart. — Wakhusht. [But better, from gare
djdoma. — Transl.]

History of the Georgian Church. 7 1
hermits, of grottoes hewn in the solid rock by the
hands of monks, and for the number as well as for
the riches of its churches. That solitude was cele
brated for many a worker of miracles, among whom
we remark especially Lucian and Dodo, disciples of
S. David. The feast of this saint is kept on the
Thursday, of the seventh week after Easter.
5. Ise, or Jesse, was ordained Bishop of Tsilcan
against his will, but at the request of King
P'harsman III. They quote, as an instance of his
power to work miracles, the bringing of water
from the river Ksani over the fields of Tsilcan* by
the waving of his crozier. This saint, renowned for
his miracles, and for his sanctity, ended his life
peaceably in Tsilcan. The Church of Georgia
celebrates his feast on the 2nd of December.
6. Joseph, after having preached the faith of
Christ to the inhabitants of Eastern Kakheth,
sowed further into the mountains the seeds of the
Gospel, which, however, were soon smothered
among the rough mountaineers. Unable to endure

8 For S. Ise of Tsilcan see above, chap. ii. note (e), and
also Karthlis Tskhovreba,- p. 1 56.

72 History of the Georgian Church,
certain traces of superstition and of heathenism,
this holy man pleaded with the Catholicos and
with the king for a greater number of churches,
and for greater zeal in maintaining the faith un-
defiled. His feast is kept on the 14th of September ;
and his relics rest in the large temple of Alawerd,h
the most spacious of all churches in Georgia, built
during his lifetime, and dedicated to the confessor
and martyr S. George.4
7. Shio, surnamed the Anchorite, by reason of
the manner and of the place in which he lived, was
renowned for his miracles and for his deep humility.
While living in a cavern hewn in the rock by him
self, he was fed by a dove which brought him food
in his retreat. This led the great Evagrius to
betake himself to that solitude and to ask Shio to
admit him into it. Evagrius being thus received,
built, at the request of the saint, a church dedicated
to the B. V Mary, and built a hermitage, which

h For Alawerd, see above, chap. ii. note (m), and for further
details respecting Ioseb, or Joseph, Karthlis Tskhovr. p. 151,
and Wakh. Gheoghr. p. 318, 319, et seq.
4 Now called the Cathedral of the Exaltation of the Cross
of Alawerd, and found in Kakheth,

History of the Georgian Church, 73
often contained a great number of hermits. The
bones of Shio, which of their own accord
moved forward from the bottom of the cavern in
which they lay, and in- which he had lived and
struggled, were long shown to believers ; and this
miracle is to this day commemorated by the
Church. At the time of the irruption of the
Persians into Iberia, under Shah Abbas, these
bones were taken out of their place, and carried
away into Persia. But, when, in consequence of
this, the Persians were routed by the terror
caused through divers apparitions, and reduced by
a fearful epidemic that preyed on them for some
time, they then brought back the remains of the
saint into Georgia5 with great pomp and with

5 It is very remarkable that the Persians, who looked upon
the land of Georgia as superstitious and infidel {giaour), yet
entertained such respect for the holy temples and for the
images that, when they invaded the country, they were afraid
to touch the consecrated goods and chattels belonging to the
churches, and did not begin to plunder them until ordered
so to do by him who ruled over them, and who set them the
example. The images of certain churches were then espe
cially, and are even at present, looked upon with awe by the
Mahomedans, as mighty patrons and protectors of the

74 History of the Georgian Church.
Georgians. Afterwards, and especially during the xvith,
xviith, and xviiith centuries, when the incursions of the
Persians were most oppressive for Georgia, many miracles
were seen that so terrified the enemy as to lead numbers of
them to embrace Christianity. • Some of the Persian Shahs
gave proof of it by adorning images in churches with silver
and gold, and by making offerings of money and of precious
wares. Indeed, the great Shah Abbas offered the hilt of
his sword, adorned with precious stones, to the image of
S. Eustathius, in Karthalinia. Many Persians at the present
day either pray to or, at least, entertain the greatest respect
for the images of the saints celebrated for their miracles in
the Church of Iberia. Georgians who were driven by Shah
Abbas to emigrate into Khorassan (I. A. Guldenstatfs
Reisen nach Georgien und Imerethi, Theil i. pp. 243and 327,
S. P. B. ed. 1787), to the number of a hundred thousand, and
who still continue Mahomedans, have among them an image
of S. Antoni, a Georgian saint ; and they do him homage
on a mountain still called Martkop, from the village of
Martkop, where they first lived, in Georgia. Images of
Gurdjistan, that is, images of Georgian saints, have long
been proverbial among them. Shah Abbas II. forbade, by
an edict, the persecution of Christians in Persia, and granted
tolerance of faith not only to Greeks, but also to Catholics,
Armenians, Nestorians, and to Christians of other professions.
His example was followed by his successor Sephi Mirza, or
Shah Solyman, and Shah Husseyn, to whom Pope Innocent
XII. wrote, in 1694, a flattering letter of thanks for his
favour and protection to the missionaries, who were then
remarkably successful in Persia. — Theatr. Europ. t. iv.; Bull.
Cann. t. iii. p. 620; Enchirid. Chron. Carmel. p. 416; Fleury,
Hist. Eccles. lib. ccxi. § lxvi.

History of the Georgian Church. 75
presents. This miracle is commemorated on the
Thursday after Shrove Sunday.1
As to the other seven Syrian saints, the par
ticulars of their lives were lost during the invasions
of the Persians and of the Turks into Georgia.
Hymns of thanksgiving in honour of them, com
posed by Arsen, Nicolas, Antoni I., Kissarion, and
Macrina, sister of King Theimuraz I., are sung
even to this day in the churches of Georgia. And
the spots where their remains were found are
marked by temples built thereon, which subsist at
present. Thus the name of Zenon is religiously
honoured in Iqalto,j that of Thaddeus in Stephants-
minda,k that of Isidore in Samthawis,1 that of

1 The life of S. Shio is also told in Karthlis Tskhovreba;
p. 154, whence this account is partly borrowed.
j Iqaltho is the name of a river of Sakhethi, and of a hand
some monastery built by Zenon, who is buried there. — Wakh.
Gheoghr. p. 318, and map 4, east of Sakhethis-mtha.
k Step'han-Tsminda, monastery built by S. Thadhe, one of
the thirteen Fathers, is situated above Caspis, near Mameba,
on the western side of the river Rekhula. — Wakh. Gheoghr.
pp. 240, 242.
1 Samthawis, church and monastery built by S. Isidore,
one of the thirteen Fathers, is situated on the eastern bank

y6 History of the Georgian Church,
Michael in Ulumba,m that of Piros in Brethi,n
that of Stephen in Khirsa.0 Besides special days
set apart in honour of some of them, the general
feast of them all is kept on the 7th of May.
II. The Iberian Church, from which the Ap'hk
hazes, the Lazes, and the inhabitants of Colchis that
dwell on the shores of the Black Sea fell away in the
reign of P'harsman III., received them back by the
help of Zath, king of the Lazes, who had shaken oft
the Persian yoke, together with the Iberians, and
had renounced heathenism. These tribes had
severed themselves, living apart from Iberia, and,
being governed by men from among themselves,

of the Rekhula, a little above Step'han-Tsminda. — Wakh.
Gheoghr. p. 242.
' m Ulumba, monastery built by S. Michael, lies at the foot
of the Likhis-mtha, near the source of the river Alis, in
Karthli, on the borders of Imerethi. — Wakh. Gheoghr.
p. 266, and id. map 3.
n Brethi, monastery built by S. Piros, lies to the west of
Urbnis, and near the river Dwanis.— Wakh. Gheoghr.
p. 260, and id. map 4, west of Ruis.
0 Khirsa, monastery founded by S. Step'hane, is situated
between Bodbe", in Sakhethi, and the river Alasan ;
S. Step'hane is buried there. — Wakh. Gheoghr. p. 310, and
id. map 4.

History of the Georgian Church. "j"j
declared Zath king, and made use of the crown,
of the purple, and of the baptism of the Emperor
Justinus in order to confirm Zath in his title of
king. Soon after a church was built in the town
of Bitshvinta6 (Pitiunta,), which Vakar, successor of
P'harsman, adorned and enriched with ecclesiastical
furniture, while the Catholicos provided priests and
a clergy for the service thereof.
III. In order to strengthen the union with the
united Greeks, the king of Iberia repaired with the
whole of his family to Constantinople in 597, to the
Greek emperor, to give him a proof of his friendship,
and thus to establish on a firm footing in Iberia an
unalterable unity in faith, and a good understanding
between the two nations, with one and the same
creed in common.
Greek historians allude to this circumstance, and
tell us that in the days of the Emperor Justinian
the Ap'hkhazes returned to the Christian faith; and

6 See, for a description of that church, which has remained
uninjured up to the present time, Voyage autour du Caucase,
par Fre"de"ric Du Bois de Montpereux, torn. i. pp. 221 — 233;
Chardin, i. 49 ; Reineggs, Allgemeine Historische u. Topogr.
Beschreibung des Caucasus, ii. 3.

78 History of the Georgian Church.
they single out, as a proof thereof, the Ap'hkhaze
officer Euphrate, who stood at the gate of the
Greek emperor. With the assistance of the Greeks,
this attendant • on the king spread afresh the
Christian faith among his own people, softened
their savage habits, and rooted out from among them
inhuman customs. And the same writers7 tell us
that Justinian built for them a beautiful temple,
dedicated to the B. V. Mary, and that he gave them
priests provided with everything necessary for Divine
service, and for all other religious ceremonies.

1 Cedren, p. 293 ; Theophr. Chronogr. pp. 145 — 146 ;
Procop. de Bello Persico, lib. ii.; Agathiae Scholasti. lib. ii-
and iii. So also write Zonaras and Paulus Diaconus, in
Hist. Justin. Senior, lib. xv., Chronicon paschale in the reign of
Justinus IV. This patron image of the B. V. Mary is now
to be found in the monastery of Gaenat, at seven versts from
Kitais. Procopius writes that Justinian restored also an ancient
Christian temple in Lazetia, which had fallen into decay
(Procop. de Edif. Just. lib. iii. cap. 7). That temple, restored
by Justinian, and still in good preservation, may be seen
among the ruins of the ancient town of the Argonauts, called
Ea, or Archeopolis. The ruins of that town are called
Nakalakesa by the Mingrelians.

History of the Georgian Church. 79

CHAPTER V.
Persecution of the Church on the part of the Persians —
Troubles of the Church from Albanian heretics —
Arrival in Georgia of Murwan the Deaf — Divers proofs
of God's protection over the Christians of Iberia — Arme
nian heretics in Georgia — War with the Greeks — A
separate Catholicos in Ap'hkhazia and in Imereth — Geor
gian children are sent to Greece for their education.
jNFORTUNATELY, the persecutions
carried on against the Christian Church
in Georgia did not grow less. After
that Izdegerd and Varan had put to death 160,000
Christians in the East, a most cruel persecution
against the Church of Iberia was set on foot by
the wily and warlike king of Persia, Kabad
(A.D. 321). This man, under pretence of the rights

80 History of the Georgian Church.
formerly granted to fire-worshippers, and himself
wishing to revive that worship, put the king of
Iberia to great straits ; so that, now by threats,
and then by promises of mercy, he so managed
that the Christian sovereign brought back Iberia to
the worship of fire and to Persian rites.1
II. The king of Iberia, Gurgen, begged the Greek
emperor to send him help ; but the emperor, oc
cupied at home, and hampered on his eastern
frontiers by the generals of Kabad, only sent to the
Iberians Probus Patricius, who, however, coming
to the rescue of a Church so threatened without
sufficient number of troops, could afford no assist
ance whatever. Then the king of Georgia, seeing
his own efforts unavailing and his resistance hope
less, was driven to hide himself with his family
among the mountain passes of the Lazes, after

1 This is what Kabadius did : " Eos (Iberians) cum ad
religionis suae instituta vellet adigere, ipsorum regi man-
davit, ut cum casteros Persarum ritus amplecteretur, turn
in primis ne mortuos tumularet, sed in praedam avibus cani-
busque projiceret." — Procop. de Bello Pers. lib. i. cap. 12;
Evagrii Schol. Hist. lib. iv. cap. 22 ; Nic. Call. Hist. xvii.
cap. 13 ; Procop. de Bell. Goth. lib. iv. cap. 3.

History of the Georgian Church. 81
having abandoned everything to the fate of war. Yet
the Church of God in Iberia, planted with the Cross
of Christ, was not only not destroyed in the midst
of all these troubles, but was even strengthened.
Kabad, suddenly called back to the rescue of his
own kingdom, returned to Persia,- leaving Iberia, it
is true, in a state of desolation, but withal strength
ened within herself by unity of the Faith. And we
may quote Procopius2 to show that, as to the spirit
of the Christians of Iberia in those days, they were,
of all Christians, the best and the most earnest in
their defence of the rules of faith, and of the rites
and ceremonies of the orthodox Church.
Meanwhile, as the persecution ceased and quiet
reigned without, so also did divisions and dissensions
increase within ; and the Church, which had just
enjoyed a short respite and peace, was again
subject to fresh disturbances from heretics called

2 Here is a proof of the zeal of Georgians for the Faith :
" Christiani sunt inter omnes, quos eo nomine censuri scimus,
sacrarum legum at caeremoniarum tenacissimi, quamvis regi
Persarum jam inde antiquitus subditi fuerint." — Procop. de
Bell. Pers. lib. i. cap. 12.

82 History of the Georgian Church.
Albanians5 for having first appeared in Albania, a
district to the south-west of Georgia, in the year
650. The doctrine they preached was, in many
respects, like that of the Manichaeans and of other
Syrian heretics. However, watchful pastors girded
against them the sword of the Word of God, as
kings did the whole of their strength ; so that, at
the outset, the nation felt confidence in resisting
these teachers of strange doctrine, and thus stayed
the further progress thereof among orthodox Chris
tians. III. About this time Georgia was exposed to the
invasion of Murwan Abul Kazim, the last khalif of
the Omniads (A.D. 730). The Christian Faith,
however, in this case, not only deprived of many

3 The doctrine of the Albanese consisted in this : —
There are two principles, one good, the Father of Jesus
Christ, who is the author of the New Testament ; the other
evil, the author of the Old Testament : the world is eternal :
the Son of God brought a body from heaven : all sacraments,
except baptism, are obsolete and useless : hell is a fable, &c.
(Gautier, dans sa Chronique ; and Diction. The"olog. par
l'Abbe" Bergier — sub voce Albanois.) Still, in the xth cen
tury, Albania had an independent Bishop, with the title of
Catholicos. — Constantin. de Cerimon. Aul. Byz. torn. ii. p. 387.,

History of the Georgian Church. 83
- advantages the Persian magi, who were obliged to
close their fire-temples in Georgia, but it also
opposed a barrier to the inroads of Islamism.
Murwan, having drawn his troops to the borders of
Georgia, rushed into Imereth, where, after having
exterminated both Christians and Christianity, he
demolished temples and gave whole towns and
villages to fire and to the sword. The Persian
barbarians revelled in the despair and in the
lamentations of the people; they defiled the
sanctuaries, offered violence to religious women,
slew the priests and sprinkled their blood on
their altars. It was during this time of woeful
tribulation for the Church of Iberia that the two
brothers Dawith and Costantine,3 powerful princes

a The martyrdom of S. Dawith and of S. Costantine,
celebrated in the Georgian Church, is thus .told in the
Synaxarion for the 31st of October: —
" Relation of the holy and invincible martyrs Dawith and
Costantine. These invincible martys were native Georgians,
from the borders of Ap'hkhazeth, and from the neighbourhood
of Argweth, and by birth aznaour {i.e., nobles) on their father's
and on their mother's side ; valiant soldiers, and invincible
in battle, well favoured, and renowned for their glorious
deeds.
G 2

84 History of the Georgian Church,
"Truly the holy and invincible martyr Dawith was, in
appearance, thus : in body, perfect and vigorous ; neither too
tall nor too short ; full of grace, and accomplished in every
good gift and meekness. He was, then, of a handsome coun
tenance, with dark eyes and a brown beard, of a fair com
plexion, and a nose slightly arched ; strong and full of faith,
with the ornament of a good conduct ; and about thirty-eight
years, of age.
" But S. Costantine was in person handsome, with dark
reddish eyes, brown, glossy, and curly hair; energetic in
speech, and quick in his answers ; fair and upright in his
address, and girt with temperance and sobriety; about
seventeen years old ; careful to fast, and never given to anger
towards those with whom he had to do. Both were entirely
strangers to evil-speaking, lying, and swearing ; both were
examples of life to hermits living in solitudes. They were
each a table for the hungry and the destitute, and both
friends of orphans. In short, they were perfect in all
virtues. "Their martyrdom happened when, in order to try our
nation, the sword of the Persians was sent against us ; when,
in order to punish us for our sins and iniquities, came
Murwan Abu'lkazim the Deaf (Murwan Qru), nephew of the
abominable impostor Mahomed, who deceived the whole
country of the Saracens, and triumphed by his deceitful
language. This martyrdom then took place, in the year of
the world 6223, and in the 777th of our Saviour's crucifixion.
" When that impious man received the mission to lay waste
our country, as well as other nations, a gathering of about a
thousand three hundred and thirty men took place, at the
head of which were Dawith and Costantine, who exhorted
them not to deny Christ. At eventide did the vanguard of

History of the Georgian Church. 85
of Argweth,b suffered martyrdom for their coura
geous confession of Christ. Their bodies, which

the Persian army of nine thousand fall upon them ; and a hot
fight lasted until the cock-crowing, when a thousand two
hundred and thirty men had fallen by the sword of the
Persians. The rest, overpowered, fled, but afterwards were
again attacked and put to death as victims for Christ, while a
few remained hidden in the woods. Meanwhile Dawith and
Costantine were taken and brought before the tyrant, in whose
presence they boldly confessed Christ ; wherefore they were
beaten by strong men — for they spake openly of the myste
rious power of Christ — and were at last condemned to perish
in the river Rion, for having thought scorn of the wishes and
of the promises of their persecutors.
" Those sainted men received this sentence with joy ; they
then begged they might be buried when dead, and prayed to
God that those who should touch them, and those who should
call upon them by name, should be cured of their diseases.
After this, certain faithful men saw a divine light shining
over them. They took up their bodies and laid them in
the chancel of the church, under ground. The place is
called Uthmini ; and there innumerable cures take place,
to the glory of God and of his saints. Amen."
This account, taken from the Georgian original, published
by M. Brosset at the end of his Grammaire de la Langue
Georgienne, Paris, 1837, is by him said to be the only
original article in the Georgian Synaxarion — that is, the only
article that is not a translation from the Greek Menologion.
* Argweth, a district of Imereth on the river Owirila,

86 History of the Georgian Church.
had been thrown into the river, were afterwards
found lying face to face on the bank, and were laid
by pious Christians in a wooden coffin in the con
vent of Motsameth. Even at present their relics
cease not to work wonderful cures on those who
piously worship them ; and the Church com
memorates their death on the 2nd of October.4
Indeed, many that are not Christians, but that
are still in heathenism, come to do homage to
those sainted relics, as if in token of the influence
Christianity once had on the inhabitants of those
countries. The war waged by the Persians on the occasion
of the spreading of the Christian Faith among the
Lazes and amongthe Ap'hkhazes again cost Georgia
the life of many of her sons. The hordes of Persia
grievously oppressed and afflicted Iberia, in spite
of the troops sent by the Greeks to her assistance.
That was a trying time for the Church ; but God,

4 See, on this subject, the Synaxarion of the Georgian
Church for the 31st of October, and the Hist, of Georgia ;
also, Elements de la Langue Georgienne, par Brosset jeune,
278—283.

History of the Georgian Church. 87
who never leaves His own without deliverance,
bade them remain quiet in His hands, while He
subjected the barbarians themselves to sundry
defeats and to severe losses, such as the rout caused
by the extraordinary terror of Masalma,5 general
of the Khozars, at the Caspian gates; a violent
earthquake felt by the Persians while preparing to
fall across Georgia upon the Khozars ; the irruption
of these same Khozars into the northern parts of
Persia, where they took rich spoils and made many
prisoners and captives ;6 and, lastly, one of the most
severe winters ever known in that part of Asia,
and, in consequence of it, a great famine and the
pestilence that followed.7
IV. The truth of the Christian Faith was then
proved by the martyrdom of many Christians ; among
others, we notice that of Shushanika8 (Susanna),

5 Theoph. Chronogr. pp. 273 — 279 ; Venice ed. makes
mention of this.
6 Ibid. p. 290.
7 Ibid. p. 291 : Anast. Bibliofh. p. 78.
8 The Armenian Church places, not without reason, her
martyrdom in the vth century (Hist, of Tchamtchian, torn. i.
p. 518, ch. ii. pp. 86, 87 ; and Hist, of Lazarus Parbius, pp.

88 History of the Georgian Church.
wife of the governor of Rham. At first she seemed
inclined to relapse, owing to the efforts of certain
Armenian9emigrants,who, availing themselves of the

93, 191, 195, both in Armenian), and calls her the daughter of
the Armenian general Bardan. She is feasted on the 25 th
of December (Martyrol. Arme"nien, Venise, 25 Dec. torn. iv.
p. 63). Her relics are laid in the temple of Metekh, in
Tiflis, the first and oldest of Christian temples in the city of
Tiflis. 9 The Armenians, who were converted to Christianity
almost at the same time as the Georgians, by S. Gregory the
Illuminator, were in close union with the East until the
Council of Chalcedon. Christianity did then flourish among
them ; but, from the year 535, the greater portion of the
Armenian Church fell aside from the Greek, by rejecting the
CEcumenic Council of Chalcedon. Even until the Council
of Florence, Dominicans sent into Armenia by Pope John
XXII. tried to persuade the Armenians to join the Western
Church ; but such proposals of union were never once
renewed, and were without results, especially after the
Council of Florence, during the papacy of Eugenius IV.
For a detailed account of this see (1) Nicon Tractat. de
Arm. Religione, in Bibl.- Patr. torn. iii. ; (2) Crusius, Ger-
mano-Grascia ; (3) Beveridge, in Trulan. Canon. 56 ; (4)
Euthymius Zigabenus, Panoplia, part ii ; (5) Simon Hist.
Predic. du Levant ; (6) Spanh. saec. v. cap. vii. p. 1004, &c.
In the History of Armenia by Tchamtchian, vol. ii. p. 301-
307, are details given relative to the falling away of the
Armenian Church from the Greek, And comparisons

History of the Georgian Church. 89
protection of the Emperor Mauricius, endeavoured
to spread in Georgia the doctrine of the Monophy-
sites, a doctrine by means of which Mauricius
wished to reconcile the Greeks, who had cut off
the Syrians from union with them ; but Kyrion,10
Catholicos of Iberia, opposed to them the Council of
Chalcedon and those that followed it ; he forbade,
under pain of anathema, all intercourse with the
setters forth of this strange doctrine, and thus pre
served the Church whole and pure. Besides this,
and notwithstanding the snares set by the orthodox
Greeks of the same faith, who trafficked through
Iberia as far as the frontiers of Persia, and who
gratified their love of gain without regard to the
sacrifice to which their oppressed brethren of Iberia
were exposed in the person of King Stephen, who

between the hierarchy of the Armenian Church and other
Eastern Churches are brought together in the book Oriens
Christianus, vol. i. p. 1347 (ed. Paris, 1740).
10 Hist, of Tchamtchian, vol. iii. ch. 47 (Armenian text) ;
also, Bulletin Scientifique publie" par l'Acad. des Sciences
de S. P^tersb. torn. v. No. 8. Among the Epistles of the
Roman Pope Gregory there is one written by him in 603 to
Kyrion Catholicos of Georgia (Epist. lib. ii. p. 67).

90 History of the Georgian Church.
was put to death by them during the conflict that
took place before under the Emperor Heraclius,
Iberia continued firm in the Faith ; and the Greek
emperors, following a far from wise policy, and
wishing to rule even over the Faith, were all
but made to withdraw from the borders of
Iberia. V In the ninth century the district of Ap'hkhazia,
worried by inroads of Greeks, and exposed to the
selfish purposes of the Greek emperors,11 wished to
have a separate head of the Church of their own,
with the title of Catholicos of Ap'hkhazia and of
Imereth. This object was facilitated with the
Greek emperor through the family ties of Pancrat,
or Bagrat, prince of the Ap'hkhazes. Bagrat then,
himself took the title of king, having resolved to
throw up all allegiance to the king of Iberia.
This, of course, weakened the bond of union
between the northern and the southern districts
of Iberia ; and it had, moreover, no small influence
on the morality both of the savage Ap'hkhazes
11 Cedrenus, pp. 548, 561, and 566 ; and acts of Domen
tius, Catholicos of Georgia.

History of the Georgian Church. 91 "
and of the inhabitants of other districts who were
led to follow their example ; as, for instance,
Imereth, Mingrelia, Guria,c Swaneth,d and other
parts of the kingdom.
No sooner was Bagrat I. made king of Ap'hkhazia
than the king of Iberia had to go to war with him,
in order to conquer him. But, although the loss of
political independence did not materially alter the
existence of the neighbouring country of Georgia, it
yet proved an injury and a source of danger to the
Church ; for at that time appeared signs of ne
gligence in the management of the Church and of
the faith of Ap'hkhazia. Troubles afflicted her ; and

0 Guria is a district of Imereth, said to belong to Karthli,
which extends from near Bationi (Batum), along the Black
Sea, to the river Rioni. Wakhusht (Gheoghr. p. 414) derives
the name from guriaoba, anarchy, or confusion ; but
M. Brosset, in a note to his translation, proposes to derive it
either from " Guebres," fire-worshippers, or from " Huria,"
the Georgian for " Jews," said by Moses of Chorene to have
been taken thither by Nebuchadnezzar. We saw, however,
(p. 6) that Moses of Chorene (lib. ii. c. 7) does not speak of
"Jews," but of " Iberians."
a The Swaneth is a northern district of Imereth, between
the Caucasus and the sea.

92 History of the Georgian Church,
now, not Persians from without, but barbarians
from within, tore her asunder, and both Church
and country fell a sacrifice to the greatest mis
fortunes. VI. Happily those misfortunes did not last long.
The Iberians, having shaken off the yoke of the
Ap'hkhazes, raised to the throne a king of the same
house, and, with great zeal, showed their faith by
their works, and prepared to follow steadily in the
way of civilization. To that intent they sent into
Greece and to Constantinople sons of freemen and
of the clergy, in order that, after being themselves
educated and civilized, they might bring home the
same advantages to their own countrymen.
Of course the rending asunder of peoples of the
same race, and of lands hitherto united, was not
likely to lead to the welfare of the Church. Yet,
in spite of this, the orthodox Faith continued pure ;
yea, even rival rulers who cherished hatred and ill-
will towards each other were nevertheless devoted
to the Christian Faith. Unfortunately, the two
nations of Georgia and of Imereth were at the
same time entertaining mutual hatred for each
other, and a disposition to reciprocal hostilities,

History of the Georgian Church. 93
which increased in after-time. The king of Iberia
saw with grief the falling away of the Ap'hkhazes,
and the hatred of the inhabitants of Imereth for
those of like faith ; but, by resorting to conciliatory
measures, he saved his kingdom from the dangerous
consequences of division ; and he set about con
firming the remaining members of the Church in
the bond of faith by spreading and establishing
Christian principles among the people. The in
habitants of Imereth, on their side, ceased not to
take up arms against their fellow-countrymen of
the same faith, whether in order to recover their
independence or to take the reins of government.
It was only through partial victories on the side of
Georgia, through the weakening of the whole of
Imereth by the defection of vaivodes who raised
themselves into independent princes, and through
the gradual enlightenment of that country by the
Faith and by sciences, that, in time, the tribes of
Imereth ceased to struggle for their freedom if not
for the mastery. And the spirit of the Gospel,
effectually taught and diffused by faithful pastors
and by kings, renewed for a time the bond of
fellowship which had been either slackened or

•94 History of the Georgian Church.
broken between the two countries, as we find from
sundry examples of a common opposition from
both kingdoms to the persecution of the Church
and of the orthodox Faith.

History of the Georgian Church. 95

CHAPTER VI.
The B. Virgin of Iberia and the Iberian convent on Mt.
Athos— Prosperity of the Church the result of the pious
deeds of kings and the fruits of martyrdom — Conversion
of the Eretes from the heresy of the Monophysites to the
true Faith — Teaching of holy men in the Church — Geor
gians take part in the Crusades — State of the Church
under King Dawith III.
JN the unhappy times for the Church
brought on by the Iconoclasts in Con
stantinople (A.D. 821), Gabriel, a monk
from Georgia, who was living on Mt. Athos
in utter seclusion from his brethren, was deemed
worthy to receive the image of the B. Virgin,
which appeared to him from the sea, over against
Mt. Athos. That image, honoured there in the

96 History of the Georgian Church.
convent that was soon after built by Georgian
monks, became renowned under the name of " the
Iberian."1 During the reign of the widow-Empress Zoe, the

1 A correct copy of this wonder-working image, made for
the use of King Alexis Michaelovitch, was brought to Moscow
by the Archimandrite Pakhom of the Iberian monastery on
Mt. Athos ; and in 1669 it was, with his consent, given to
the monastery of Kitais, formerly called Nikola bolshaya
glaba, founded in 1556, and afterwards changed to the Greek
of Nikolaev, a convent of second class, immediately dependent
on the Synod, {Stavropighialnii vtoroclasnii) allowed by the
Iberian Church to belong to one archimandrite and to four
elders, for the exercise therein of the service in the Greek
language, and possessed of a charter.
Already, in the year 1654, a monastery was built near the
town of Balda, on one of the islands of the lake of Balda, •
dedicated to the B. V. Mary. The Patriarch Nicon built it
with taste, after the pattern of the Iberian convent on Mt.
Athos. He took as a guide the image of the B. V. Mary. On
that island there are six churches of stone.
In the year 1613, and at about thirty versts from Kazan, a
hermitage was built by the Hieromonachos Philarete, under
the name of Raiphskaya Bogoroditskaya. There are in it
fifteen churches, the chief of which is synodal, bears the
name of the B. V. Mary of Georgia ; and there also may be
seen a wonder-working image. This hermitage is placed
under the rule of an abbot or prior.

History of the Georgian Church. 97
Iberian Prince Tornikius, who served gloriously in
the Greek army, took the order of monk, and with
drew to Mt. Athos, in the days of S. Athanasius of
that place, together with two other princes of the
same country, who also became monks. The fame
of this man shone not only in his great efforts as a
religious of his order, but also in his building there
a general convent, spacious and rich, the fruit of his
military deeds. It happened thus. When war
broke out between the Persians and the Byzantine
empire, the Greeks found themselves without an
able general. Then Tornikius, who before had
already distinguished himself by his valour on
the field of battle, was called from his cell in
the convent; and, at the repeated instances of
S. Athanasius, and with his blessing, he took the
command of the Greek army and ended the
war with glory.2 The Greeks, to show their

2 This story, borrowed from the descriptive history of
Georgia (pp. 13, 14), is told, with a few verbal alterations, both
by Armenian and by Greek historians. We are indebted for
a good criticism thereon to M. Brosset, in the article
Histoire des Bagratides Georgiens, d'aprh les Auteurs
Armeniens et Grecs, jusqtfau commencement du xie siecle,
H

98 History of the Georgian Church.
gratitude, rendered him great assistance by build
ing on Mt. Athos a new monastery, which sub
sists to this day, and retains its original name
of the Iberian convent.3 Tornikius, promoted to

Inserted in the " Bulletin de la Classe Historico-Philologique
de l'Acad. ImpeY. de S. P. B." torn. i. No. 12, 13.
3 We find in the annals of this monastery the details of the
circumstances that followed the contests with the Persians
under the government of Prince Tornikius. In the sacristy
of that monastery, and in memory of the hero and founder
of it, who was also its first archimandrite, are at present
kept his armour and his weapons, remarkable for their weight
and precious ornaments. The Russian Basil Gregorovitch
Barskii, who travelled on foot to holy places, saw those
rarities and described them in his book (Journey to Holy
Places, p. 580 and following). He also describes the Iberian
monasteries built at Jerusalem by kings of Georgia, and
the first of those convents by the Georgian Prince Tamian, in
the fifth century, at p. 201 and following. Mention is also
made of this monastery, and of another also, known under
the name "Lazorum in eremo Hierosolymytana" (tJ> tZv \a£Sv
iv ip-hixy 'UpocroKifiav) by Procopius, De ./Edificiis, lib. v.
cap. ix. In Chron. Cyprii, append, the seal of this monastery
is noticed with the inscription 2<ppayls /j.ovtjs tuv 'l^pav ttjs
vnepaylas 0€ot6kov ttjs iropraiTri^Tis.
The Iberian monastery, which is third in order of the
monasteries on Mt. Athos, was at first planted by three
monks formerly kings of Georgia, John, Euthymius, and

History of the Georgian Church, 99
George. It stands on the sea-shore, under high moun
tains. The above-named kings first built there a small
habitation, with a church, rich, magnificent, and rendered
famous by the number of its confessors and champions, and
afterwards by the wonder-working image of the B. V. Mary
of Iberia. After the death of the Greek emperor Roman,
and on the occasion of the war breaking out against Persia,
that spread alarm in Constantinople, Queen Zoe called
Tornikius from his modest cell and estate of monk of Mt.
Athos. But, unwilling as he was to accede to the prayers of
the court, he yielded at last to the unanimous intreaties of
the hermits of Mt. Athos and to the will and blessing of
S. Athanasius of that place. General Tornikius, having
defeated the Persians and made peace with them,
became archimandrite ; and, instead of rank and honours,
he begged for means wherewith to build a greater and a
better monastery. Thus helped, he increased the number of
cells, enlarged the church, and added to it several cupolas,
surrounding it with high walls, which subsist to this day.
By the will of the founder the principal temple was dedicated
to the Assumption of the B. V. Mary, instead of the former
one, dedicated to Precursor S. John the Baptist. That
temple bore this name until the time of Theophilus
the iconoclast.
But in the reign of Theophilus (a.D. 827 — 842), who
raised a furious persecution against the worshippers of
images, some pious Christians of Constantinople, according
to tradition, cast the image of the B. V. Mary into the sea,
rather than let it fall into the impious hands of those who
carried out the will of the emperor. By God's direction this
image, surrounded by a bright halo, floated down to Mt.
Athos, and stood in view of the monasteries. A reverend
H 2

100 History of the Georgian Church.
father and monk from among the Georgians, who was living
separate from his brethren, was thought worthy, through
the support of faith which overcomes one's nature, to go into
the sea and to take the holy image of the B. V. Mary.
That image was at once placed in the Iberian monastery ;
but as that monastery finds itself, by the ascent to Aphon,
near to the gates of the whole mountain, it received
the name of T\.opTa4\-n\s (gate-keeper). On that occasion a
church was built at the expense of the kings of Georgia and
dedicated to that wonderful image, adorned and set in silver,
with an inscription in Georgian.
In the monastery itself are found the following churches : —
i. The great mother church of the Assumption of the
B. V. Mary. This temple, says the traveller Barskii, is
most beautiful, adorned with marble pillars, high windows,
candelabra, tapers, and other valuable church furniture.
The cupola of the principal temple is supported by four
pillars of white marble, remarkably well finished ; the whole
temple and the walls are adorned with marble pillars, and
the whole floor with marbles of various colours ; and the
windows are finished with a tracery of costly green stone.
The choir is the most beautiful of all others on Mt,
Athos. And, as to the excellent finish of the floor, Barskii
describes it in this wise : — The floor, here as also in the
laura, or monastery of the first order, is laid with the
most costly marbles of various colours, and in patterns
which, for beauty and variety, it is impossible to describe.
Among the rarities of this temple we may remark espe
cially {a) a candelabrum of crystal and another of copper,
with forty-six sockets ; {b) four images adorned with pearls,
before which stand silver candlesticks ; {c) a table for
the consecration of the bread, made of ivory, very beau-

History of the Georgian Church. Ioi
tifully worked, and covered with pearls ; {d) the seat of the
prior, admirably carved and gilt ; with other rich offerings
from wealthy Russians, who loved to adorn the temple of God ;
crosses of silver and of copper with Russian inscriptions,
Gospels richly illuminated, a chalice, and other precious
articles consecrated to the service of God.
2. The second temple, consecrated to the image of the
B. V. Mary of Iberia, built by Georgian princes at the
expense of kings of Georgia, afterwards restored by the
illustrious Prince John Serbin, vaivode of Cantacuzen, is
supported by white marble columns, highly worked. In the
porch of the temple are portraits of Greek philosophers, who,
in the gloom of heathenism, drew near to the mysteries of
Christianity — such as Plato, Aristotle, Solon, Chilon,
Plutarch, and Thucydides ; below every one of these sages
is written some remarkable sentence of his.
3. The Church of S. John the Baptist, or the Precursor :—
one half of this temple is all covered with marble ; it has
also marble columns of a green stone, and pillars more
exquisitely beautiful than those of the temple above
described. Besides these, there are the following sixteen lesser temples
and oratories of the Iberian convent : —
1. Dedicated to S. Nicolas.
2. Synod of the Holy Archangel.
3. Entrance to the temple of the B. V. Mary.
4. S. Eustathius.
5. S. Stephen, proto-martyr.
6. Constantine and Helena.
7. Transfiguration of our Lord.
8. S. John the Theologian.
9. All Saints.

102 History of the Georgian Church.
the post of archimandrite of that monastery, ended
there his glorious, long, and angelic life.
10. S. Damian and Panteleimon.
II. S. George, martyr.
12. Exaltation of the Holy Cross.
13. S. Spindon, thaumaturge.
14. Dionysius the Areopagite.
15. S. Neophytus, martyr.
16. S. Modestus.
In the sacristy of this monastery travellers are shown the
arms and the armour of Tornikius, chief promoter of the
Iberian monastery. Of these Barskii speaks in this wise :
" In the sacristy of that convent his (Tornikius's) armour is
preserved, weapons alike wonderful and worthy of all praise "
(Journey, &c, 2nd ed. p. 580).
This monastery has also a remarkable library, a quantity
of bones of saints, deeds of hand of Russian and Georgian
kings, and of Greek emperors, called Chrisobuli. Among
them we may remark two of John Cantacuzen, written on
parchment in the year 1341 ; of the Servian king Stephen,
in 1306; of the Greek emperor John Paleologus, given in
1357 ; °f Michael Duke (1073) Angelus Comnene ; of
Paleologus, in the year 1200 ; of Andronicus, in 1 184. Of all
these the deeds of the kings of Georgia draw the special
attention of the traveller. " The Chrisobule," says the same
writer, " is distinguished from all other documents by the
number of seals, and by silver capitals on many leaves joined
together and neatly written — an honour that belongs to the
Georgians alone, for it was all written in their characters "
(P- 593)-

History of the Georgian Church. 103
II. Neither wars, nor revolutions, nor yet the in
ternal weakening of the Church, which increased in
time, could hinder the progress of outward en
lightenment, in proportion of which the inward
strengthening of the Faith found increase and
support. We may judge of that degree of civiliza
tion from the few remaining monuments that
escaped being entirely destroyed by fire, and by
the ravages of time, by the Mahomedan thraldom,
and by mountain tribes which harassed the Church,
not so much from a feeling of hatred to her as
from an innate disposition to lawlessness and to
rapine. Such destruction of existing monuments
was all the more disastrous, as at that time public
libraries, and other collections of books in monas
teries, were still far from common. As regards
outward and visible proofs of individual piety, that
period is remarkable for the building of monasteries
by pious princes and by kings ; for the beautifying
of temples ; for the costly gifts and riches poured
into them by Christians ; and for the endowment
of the same with lands and villages, charged with
the maintenance of the clergy, and with that of
anchorites living in solitude.

104 History of the Georgian Church.
III. In Georgia personal piety showed itself in the
building of the church to the B. Virgin of Khakhul,a
in that of the cathedral of Bedia,b of Sap'hara,0 and
of Kitai,d in the beautifying of the monastery of
Gaenat,4, and of others such. Out of zeal for the

a Khakhul. — The church and monastery of that name are
situated between the river Thorthorin and the Ship'haklu
mountains, in the western part of Samtzkhe". It was built by
Dawith, who adopted Bagrat III. It was afterwards re
stored and embellished by Dawith the Reformer. — Wakh.
Gheoghr. p. 124.
b Bedia was formerly called Egris, from Egros, son of
Thogarma, who came and settled there, in Imereth. Bagrat,
LIVth king of Georgia, built there a beautiful church, and
appointed thereto a bishop of the Odish, a district of Imereth.
Wakh. Gheoghr. p. 400.
0 Sap'hara, a convent on the banks of the Ghrel, not far
from Akhal-tzikh6, in Samtzkhe". — Wakh. Gheoghr. p. 90.
d Kuthathis, Kitais, or Kuthai, on the Rioni, in Imereth,
was built by Leon, Ist king of the Ap'khazes. Bagrat, LVIth
king of Georgia, built therein a rich and spacious church,
adorned with mosaic and marbles of various colours, and
made it a bishopric. — Wakh. Gheogr. p. 370.
The temple of Kitais, that was destroyed by the Turks
in 1 69 1, and which now is shown in ruins, was built by King
Bagrat III. and by the wife of Bagrat IV., Queen Helena,
daughter of the Greek emperor Roman Argir, at the
beginning of the xith century.
4 The monastery of Gaenat was built by King David the

History of the Georgian Church. 105
saints, other temples were then either restored or
built in memory of men who had suffered for the

Reformer (1089 — 1126). There is shown to this day the
gate of Darbent, the trophy of a victory of King David III.,
with cufic inscriptions, deciphered by the academician
Fresne, in " Erklarung der Arabischen Inschrift des eisernen
Thorfliigels im Kloster zu Gelathi in Imerethi, mit zwei
lithogr. Tafeln," St. Pet. 1836, torn. iii. Memoire de PAcad.
ImpeY. des Sciences ; vie- Se"rie, Science historique, &c.
The cathedral of Sap'hara is found at seven versts from
Akhaltzikhe". It was built in the xth century by vice-rois
of Western Georgia, who afterwards were called Atabegs.
This temple, remarkable for its architecture, for marvellous
specimens of sculpture, and for many historical monuments,
has remained empty since the year 1625, when, through the
wiles of Saphar-Pasha, who then ruled over Akhal-tzikhe", the
inhabitants of those parts were made to embrace Islamism.
The Count Paskevitch Eviv, who obtained for Georgia her
former condition, reopened that temple for Divine service
in- 1829. The architecture thereof astonishes every one,
even the celebrated traveller in the Caucasus, M. Du Bois
(Voyage autour du Caucase, torn. ii. p. 292 — 299). This
temple was at first dedicated to the intercession of the
B. V. Mary.
Khakhul is a small place at the western extremity of the
Georgian settlements on the river Ispiri, bounded by the
ancient Cappadocia, and a monastery to the B. V. Mary;
celebrated in Georgian history, adorned with rich offerings
of kings ; it was built by David Curopalates, the adopted

to6 History of the Georgian Church.
Faith ; such are, for instance, the temple of the
B. V. Mary in Tiflis, on the same spot where
people worship the relics of Shushanika, or
Susanna, queen of Rhan, who, as we saw above,
received the crown of martyrdom at the hands
of her husband Vaskan, a worshipper of fire ; the
temples dedicated to the martyr Eustathius, to
the martyrs David and Constantine, to King
Archil, to S. Constantine, to the martyr Gobron,
to the worker of miracles S. Hilarion,5 and to others.

son of Bagrat, who succeeded him on the throne in 1089-
11 26, under the title of Bagrat IV. The image of the B. V.
Mary that stood in the temple, one of the oldest, richest, and
rarest of images, was brought into Imereth at the time of
the invasion of the Mahomedans into Samtzkheth, and is now
found in the monastery of Gaenat, at seven versts from the
town of Kitais. The- monastery of the B. V. Mary of
Khakhul and other churches were also left empty in the
xvith century. The ruins of that rich temple, which re
main there to this day, remind one of the perversion of
Christians to Islamism, who nevertheless preserved the
customs and the language of their brethren of the same
blood, by not forgetting, during seven centuries, the image
of the B. V. Mary of Khakhul and the faith of their
ancestors. 5 This worker of miracles was descended from the princes
of Kakheth Vatchnadz, and from the year 869 became superior

History of the Georgian Church. 107
Besides this, festivals in honour of these saints were
instituted, in order to bring and keep together as
well as to encourage the people, harassed as they
were by the frequent incursions of their enemies.
On the other hand, the earnestness of the great
efforts made from monasteries for the good of the
surrounding country and villages brought out
many good and holy men, encouraged by the
example of Prince Dawith, son of Sambat, a grandee
of the realm ; of Adamas and of Basil, sons of
Bagrat who took religious orders. Thus were
monasteries not only kept up as means of good to
the country, but thus also were they oftentimes
richly endowed and otherwise supported.

of the hermitage of Davido-Garedj. Fleeing from the glory
of men — for he would not accept the episcopate offered him
by the king and by the people, he withdrew himself to Greece.
After visiting many places, such as Jerusalem, Rome, &c, he
at last settled in Thessalonica, where he died, in the year 882,
aged 89. The Greek emperor Basilius of Macedonia
brought the remains of this holy man from Thessaly to Tzare-
grad and laid them in the monastery of the Holy Apostle
called Romanus (?). This saint distinguished himself by the
translation of the Holy Scriptures and of ascetic writings from
Greek into Georgian.

108 History of the Georgian Church.
IV The zeal for the orthodox faith, which is a dis
tinctive feature of very many kings of Georgia, was
not long in enlightening the Eretes, at that time
poisoned with the Arian heresy, and with that of
the Monophysites. So also the establishment at
that time of the eparchy of Ishkondit, in Mingrelia,
by King George, and of that of Mokuski, in Samur-
tshakan, by King Leon ; the gathering of the
relics of those who had pleased God during their
life ; the translation from the Greek language of
all books of the Church, and of some other theolo
gical works by Georgian teachers, brought up in
the convent of Mt. Athos and at Constantinople —
as, for instance, by John of Athos, Euthymius, and
Gregory ; as well as the zeal and the efforts of
Gregory, Arsen, Antonius, Basilius, Cyprian, Bishop
of Samthavi, of George, celebrated under the name
of Sviatogorets, the holy mountaineer ; of S. Hila-
rion, and of others, — strengthened and established
the Church for ever ; and kings, by founding and
supporting schools, contributed to the enlighten
ment of many of their subjects. These learned
and educated men not only corrected and purified
the Georgian language, which hitherto was un-

History of the Georgian Church. 109
formed, but they also wrote much in prose and in
verse, and translated still more works of the best
Greek authors. The kings of Georgia, on their
side, did not only found and support schools for
the enlightenment and civilization of the people,
but they also made other efforts to multiply
teachers. To that effect they frequently sent to
Greece, for their education, a considerable number
of children, for the most part of the more honour
able families in the land, and already more or less
prepared at home by a like education, so as to
perfect themselves in the learning of that time.
Among such men, to whom Georgia is greatly
indebted for light and knowledge, we may notice
John Patricius, a scholastic philosopher, surnamed
Tchirtchimius,6 Stephen, and others. These learned
men brought back into their native land the
creations of Greek intelligence; they translated
into the Georgian language some of the works of
Plato, of Aristotle, of Porphyrius, of Damascius,

6 The most remarkable of his translations from the Greek
is that of the philosophical works of Proclus Diadochus.

1 10 History of the Georgian Church.
and of others, translations which exist at present in
manuscript. V. History tells us that the Georgians, although
separated from Europe, were yet near enough to it
to share in the spirit which at that time roused the
whole of Europe, and with it they also took up
arms for the Crusades. Flattered at the thought
of conquering the world, and of rescuing the grave
of our Lord from the enemies of Christianity,
Georgia sent a few troops on that expedition ; but
those courageous defenders of the Faith were
wrecked on the Black Sea. This untoward acci
dent, however, did not hinder fresh attempts on the
part of the Georgians. The glory of the victories
and the report of disasters carried here and there
over the world, and, as a Greek writer (Anna
Comnena Hist, of Emp. Alexis) says, shaking the
whole of Europe to her foundations, led the
Georgians to set on foot another expedition. The
success thereof is not known ; but the Georgian
crusaders probably joined the Syrian Christians
and the Armenian princes, who went forth on an
expedition after the victory of the Saracens, and who
joined it under the name of Captains of the West

History of the Georgian Church. in
VI. Notwithstanding all the increase of light, the
Church of Iberia did not remain free from internal
divisions and dissensions. These were all the more
felt as the estrangement of the people of Imereth
begat hatred on their part for the Georgians of
the same faith with themselves, in addition to the
little love which existed between these two coun
tries, independently of faith or of brotherhood.
These times, troublous, and often even stormy, by
reason of the frequent attacks of the Persians
and of the Turks, required a king of a strong
mind and of a firm character. Such was Dawith
or David III., who came to the throne in the year
1089. He called together a synod,7 and cleansed
the Church of sundry remnants of heresy : at the
time, too, when the whole of Asia seemed divided
between the heresy of the Monophysites and that
of the Acephalites, spread right and left by whole
companies of monks who wandered about Georgia
deceiving those who were weak enough to hearken
to them. Things went so far that even the bishops

7 The synodal act of that time was discovered by me
(P. Ioselian) in the library of the temple of Mtzkhetha.

112 History of the Georgian Church
and pastors of the people despaired of maintaining
the orthodox faith.
News of all this reached the ears of the Roman
emperor Diogenes.8 He endeavoured to devise means
whereby to prevent further schisms in the churches
of Asia ; but political considerations did not leave
him free to carry his good intentions into effect ; so
that, after having tarried awhile on the borders ol
Iberia, he returned to Constantinople. Meanwhile
zealous opponents of the Greek Church scattered
about in Asia did their best to injure the orthodox
faith in Iberia by spreading their false doctrines
among the faithful. But, as the wickedness of their
motives became apparent, the Church doubled her
efforts and care in preserving the purity of the
Faith among her sons. Then the reaction that

8 These are the words of Joh. Cyllitze Curopalates : Tot
nationum Turcorum et Saracenorum concursus et concitatio
et eorum qui sub Romanis degebant defectio ira divina quidem
evenere contra Haereticos, qui Iberiam et Mesopotamiam
usque ad Sicandrum et Melitenemet finitimam incoluntArme-
niam. Judaicamque Nestorii et Acephalorumcolunthasresim,
et enim plena; sunt haec regiones hujuscemodipravae opinionis.
— Cedren. vol. ii. p. 814.
9 History of Georgia by Wakhusht.

History of the Georgian Church. 113
followed against those heterodox teachers soon
foui\d an opportunity of turning itself against Arians
as well ; or, more correctly, perhaps, against those
Arians who had embraced the heresy of the Mono-
physites. King David, after his victory over the Armenians
and the storming of their city Ani, called together
a synod, over which presided John, Catholicos of
Iberia, and the learned bishops Arsen of Ikaltska,
Ephrem the younger, Theophilus, and John,
surnamed Taitch. These learned men might
have been inclined towards the orthodoxy of the
Armenian bishops then present at the synod ; but
the Armenian people, having received information
of this, would not hear of even the least alteration
in their Faith ; wherefore, with the exception of
increased enmity between the two nations, the
synod rose without any results. Moreover, about
the year 1 147, the Church of Constantinople, mak
ing fresh efforts, succeeded in bringing the Arme
nians into union with herself ; and, after lengthened
deliberations of Armenian bishops with learned
Greek and Georgian bishops, held before the Em
peror Michael Comnene, which were thus dragged I

1 14 History of the Georgian Church.
on because the Greeks insisted on the complete
alteration of rites adopted from olden time and firmly
rooted in Armenia, a certain Theorian travelled
from Constantinople into Armenia, and, as himself
relates, persuaded the bishops and pastors of the
Armenian Church to give up every difference be
tween them and the Eastern Church. As to what
other results his return to Constantinople had
neither Theorian himself nor other writers tell us
aught. It is probable that, owing to the troubles
of the time, he did not succeed in reaching Con
stantinople alive.10
The good deeds of King David in behalf of the
Faith were not limited to Georgia only ; for he
sent rich presents to Jerusalem, to Mt. Athos, to
Mt. Sinai, and to Cyprus. On Mt. Sinai he built,
at his own expense, though it is not known on
what occasion, a temple dedicated to the Holy
Virgin and martyr Catherine, and he placed there
a metropolitan.11 During his encounters with
10 Spanh. Hist. Eccl. saec. xii. cap. 9.
11 Cluveri Introductio Geogr. lib. v. cap. xvi. Vide notam
Bunonis Hist. Nov. Test, pars v. aut. Joh. Henr. Hottingeri,
p. 49.

History of the Georgian Church. 1 1 5
enemies both of the Church and of his country
David never once forgot that it was God himself
who blessed his efforts and protected his life. Thus,
on his own testimony, while meeting an attack from
the Turks, both he and his enemies saw S. George
protecting him ; and, on another occasion, he was
saved from instant death by a special act of faith,
when a thunderbolt falling upon him was prevented
from hurting him by the golden image of the
Archangel Michael which he wore on his breast.
An invasion of Iberia by Greeks obliged David
to defend the frontiers of his dominions and to
seek redress with the sword. On account of the
great services which David rendered to his own
kingdom, harassed as it was by incursions of the
Persians, he was surnamed the Reformer ; while, for
his holy life, which always shone with good deeds,
as well as for his constant defence of the Faith, he
was numbered among the saints, and is feasted by
the Georgian Church on the 26th of January.

I 2

1 1 5 History of the Georgian Church.

CHAPTER VII.
Learned men in the Church — Restoration of the Convent oi
the Holy Cross at Jerusalem— State of the Church
during the reign of Queen Tamar — Reign of George
VII. — Victories of Gengis-Khan — Disunion among the
principalities of Georgia — Remarkable men of that
time. jN the flourishing days of Georgia— that
is, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries
— the Georgian Church was adorned
with very many learned and enlightened men.
Almost all of them taught in places where Christian
sciences found refuge from the barbarism of the
Middle Ages; many attained to the highest then
possible eminence of spiritual instruction, even in the
interior of the country, whether through their own

History of the Georgian Church. 1 1 7
superiority of mind or through the introduction and
assistance of the public teachers of the,land, who,
being often even of the rank of high priests, did not
object to the work of teaching, in consideration of
the great want of instructors for the people. Among
those men are especially remarkable —
(1) Arsenius of Ikaltska, who was brought out of
the caves of Shiomginsk, at the earnest instance of
the king, to be the court chaplain. Cotemporary
writers call him theologian, physician, metaphysician,
syllogistic, and poet, both spiritual and secular ;
(2) Ephrem, the younger, schoolfellow of Arsenius ;
(3) George, first founder in Tiflis ,of the high
school for noblemen and for the children of the
clergy, translated from the Greek sundry books of
the Holy Scriptures, and multiplied copies of them,
through his own teachers, copyists, and caligraphists,
for the use of many churches ; (4) Theophilus, called,
in the Georgian Church, " creator of hymnology,"
translated from the Greek many books into the
Georgian language, and composed several hymns in
honour of Georgian saints ; (5) John Taitcha, whose
compositions are still extant, they say, in the Iberian
convent on Mt. Athos. Among the learned men

1 1 8 History of the Georgian Church.
of that time we may also reckon Demetrius, an
ascetic of the solitude of Garedj.
II. Towards the middle of the eleventh century a
monk native of Shabtel, by name Prochorus, was
sent to Jerusalem, and there took up his abode in the
convent of the Holy Cross.1 He was furnished by

1 The convent at Jerusalem, dedicated to the " Holy
Cross of our Salvation " (of the Holy Cross), was at first
built by King Tatian (?), in the vth century. Ever since it
has never been in want of repairs, owing to the interest taken
in it by the Iberians and by the Patriarchs of Jerusalem. At
the end of the xviith century it contained 220 cells. Among
other offerings, one remarks there three silver candelabra,
a cross of gilt silver, that contains a fragment of the true
Cross, a span in length and an inch thick. Once the floor
of the temple was all marble, but now it is covered with
white stones resembling marble. There are yet four more
churches. Against the walls are the representations of
sundry kings of Georgia and of patriarchs of Jerusalem who
took interest in the improvement and adorning of this
convent with Georgian inscriptions. Formerly there were
in it many images. This convent has at present, in Tiflis,
a conventual church and house in connection with it, under
the name of the Holy Cross ; fields, lands, and labourers,
granted to it by kings of Georgia ; and is under the manage
ment of the Greek archimandrite, who collects the revenues
yearly, and who dispenses them for the use of the convent in
Jerusalem.

History of the Georgian Church. 119
King Bagrat Curopalat, who before had interested
himself in behalf of that convent, with a sufficient

During the troublous times of Georgia, and the massacre
of Georgian monks by invading Ethiopians, this convent
passed into the hands of the Armenians. But the king of
Georgia, having asked it of the sultan of Egypt, himself
restored to the country this ancient possession. See Travels
of Baumgarten (in Latin), about the year 1500 ; lib. ii. c. ix.
The number of monasteries erected in Palestine by the
kings of Georgia amounts to eleven. As a payment for the
outlay of the war, the king of Georgia received from the
Greek emperor one half of Golgotha ; and, having covered it
with monasteries, he set over it his own bishop. When the
prosperous days of Georgia began to wane, it was bought
partly by Armenians and partly by united Greeks (Moura-
vieff, Trav. vol. ii. p. 88). The Catholics refer the building
of these monasteries to Spaniards, who founded them under
the common appellation of " Iberes ;" but this never once
misled historians that are not shortsighted in their investi
gations. For, the common report of the Greeks, which
ascribes these monasteries to Georgians, is confirmed by the
opinion of Armenians themselves, who consider that they
are bound, by a deed preserved in the patriarchate of
Jerusalem, to make over this sanctuary to the Georgians as
soon as ever these are in a state to pay to the Porte a tribute
for the possession of the convent that bears their name.
The grounds on which the Franks ascribe to Spaniards the
building of the convent of S. James in particular are only
the interior architecture of the synodal church, which
partakes of the Byzantine and of the Western styles

120 History of the Georgian Church.
sum of money for the restoration and beautifying
thereof. But that establishment, after having for a
long time been the abode and refuge of pilgrims
from Georgia to Jerusalem, fell into decay. The
pillars that support the dome of the convent, which
had, by reason of old age, reached a hopeless
state, were restored and decorated by Shota Rus-
tavel, treasurer of Queen Tamar, who mentions him
in a poem written by herself under the name of
Barsova koja, " The Panther's Skin," wherein he is
also represented or described under the appearance
of an old man.
III. Notwithstanding the yoke of Mohammedan-
(Mourav. Trav. vol. ii. pp. 72, 73). The Georgians, however,
oppressed by the Turks, who ruled over the Vaivode of
Samtske-Saatabeg (district of Akhaltsikhe"), did not resign
their sanctuaries in Palestine before the beginning of the
xviith century. For the German councillor Baumgarten, who
travelled in Palestine about the year 1525, saw, in the temple
of Solomon, Georgians praising the one and same God,
together with Franks, Greeks, Syrians, Jacobites, Indians or
Abyssinians, and Armenians. Among all these the Georgians
took the fourth place in the temple ; that is, after Romans,
Greeks, and Syrians. And he also says that still in the
xvith century the Georgians had possession of the convent
on Golgotha (lib. ii. c. 9).

History of the Georgian Church. 121
ism, that weighed heavily on all parts of the world
then conquered by Christianity, the Church of Iberia
stood her ground manfully in the midst of the
fears, wars, and incursions of her enemies. The
kings who sat on the throne of Georgia after David
the Reformer imitated the piety, the firmness, and,
in general, the example of their honourable and
worthy predecessor, courageously defended and
protected the Church, and fought for her honour
and for the increase of knowledge. King George III.
and his daughter Tamar reaped the fruits of their
efforts in a thorough renovation of Iberia (A.D. 1 150).
The period of this queen's reign, called the golden
age of Georgian literature, and the writings
of that time that have come down to us, show
that she bestowed great attention on the litera
ture of her time, both ecclesiastical and civil (A.D.
1 174). After proclaiming Iberia an imperial government,
she proceeded, within a short time, to bring under
her rule the whole of Ap'hkhazia, all the inhabitants
of the mountains, Imereth, Karthalinia, and Kak
heth. She called a synod in Mtzkhetha for the pur
pose of confirming the Church, by the establishment

122 History of the Georgian Church.
of ceremonies, in harmony with the institutions of
the Greek Church. Twice did Tamar put to flight
the Turks, come out for the conquest of Iberia.
During two terrible battles she herself saw the finger
of God directing her to the fight, and, with her sol
diers, witnessed the miraculous conversion of one of
the Mohammedan generals who was made prisoner.
Treading in the footsteps of David and of his hero
ism, she sent presents and made gifts to many places
in the Greek empire the most exposed to the
Turkish arms. Historians remark that the Greek
emperor wished to avail himself of some of those
presents, which he took by force from the Geor
gian ambassadors. But the Georgians avenged
themselves of this on him, by making incursions
against Trapezus, Sinope, into Paphlagonia, upon
the shores of the Black Sea subject to the Greek
rule, and into Cappadocia. Besides all this, innu
merable churches on mountains and in forests, built
in places memorable for glorious events of that or of
the preceding time ; the adorning and .endowing of
temples with gifts of gold, silver, and precious stones,
as offerings to the precious objects of Faith and
of piety; the beautifying of monasteries both at

History of the Georgian Church. 123
home3 and abroad, at Jerusalem, on Mt. Athos, and
on Mt. Sinai ; about 300,000 troops for the defence
of the nation against the enemies of the Church ; and
a tribute laid on the Armenians and on the Ap'hk
hazes, form other proofs of Tamar's power and of
her zeal in doing good.
IV. After the reign of Queen Tamar (A.D. 1204)
the Georgian Church suffered persecution at the
hands of some of her ambitious pastors. This proved
to be for her all the greater evil, as, for about two
years, the Tartars and the Persians endeavoured to
prevail against her with the Coran. But Providence,
in order to stay the misfortunes of those days, ap
peared in the person of George VII., who shook off
the yoke of the Persians and of the Greeks in the
time of Paleologus. He, being himself a pattern of
Christian bearing and manners, which he set forth
in the strict rule of a Christian life, rebuilt at Jeru-
2 Among numerous edifices raised by Queen Tamar in
Georgia and in Imereth, we may remark especially the
temple dedicated to the Holy Trinity, and built on ancient
foundations, in the northern part of Kakheth, on the left
bank of the Alazan, in a small place called Albani. There
also are seen the remains of her castle or palace.

124 History of the Georgian Church.
salem nearly the whole of Golgotha, having obtained
it from the Greeks in exchange for subsidies he
had sent them. Throughout history he is called
"the Morning Star;" the native writers compare
him with Jeremiah and Zorobabel; and they de
scribe the era of his reign as "the sun" of Georgian
history. V. The times of the irruption of the Mongols
into Georgia were of the hardest for the Chris
tians (a.d. i 176 — 1229). By order of Gengis-Khan,
Christians of all ages, ranks, and conditions were
brought into the temples and there burnt alive.
Pyramids of human heads marked his progress
through the country, the swords of his soldiers
having put to death 300,000 Christians. In the
city of Mtzkhetha itself, that was a monument
of primitive Christianity, he left nothing but
traces of the walls and mounds of ruins ; he slew
all the inhabitants who had remained in the city ;
he witnessed himself the destruction, down to
the foundations, of the cathedral, which was a
beautiful relic of ancient architecture; he visited
with like destruction all the monasteries and the
cathedrals of the several dioceses, including the

History of the Georgian Church. 125
monastery of Bodba, wherein rest the bones of Nina,
the light of Georgia. It is possible that all this
cruelty might be owing to the fact that the Iberians,
in order beforehand to protect themselves from the
ravaging sword of Gengis-Khan, left their houses
in prey to the cruelty, rapine, and destroying hordes
of the barbarians, and, at the time of his arrival,
hid themselves in forests and in inaccessible moun
tain passes.
VI. As if for a greater increase of misfortune to
the Church, soon after the death of Queen Rusu
dana, Iberia, which was already divided into the two
kingdoms of Imereth and of Kakheth, suffered a
fresh dismemberment of her own kingdom into in
dependent states, such as those of Odish (Mingrelia),
Guria, Ap'hkhazia, Swaneth, and Djikheth,a the
result of which was the entire falling away from
the Faith of all the Ap'hkhazes, Djikhethes, Ossetes,
Kabardes, and Kisthethes.b -The kingdom of Iberia,
a The Djiketh is a district of Imereth, to the north of
Ap'khazeth. The inhabitants thereof, once Christians, have
now lost all Christianity. — Wakh. Gheoghr. p. 408.
b Kistheth is a district in North Sakheth. — Wakh. Gheoghr.
p. 328.

126 History of the Georgian Church.
together with the district of Radchana,c was yet at
peace, and her kings, crowned in the city of Kitais,
quietly occupied the throne until the invasion of
Tamerlan, God's scourge on the sins of Iberia, as
historians call him.
VII. In the midst of woeful misfortunes and of
the devastation caused by Gengis-Khan and by the
wars of the sultan, God's Providence for the conso
lation of the Church was marvellously displayed in
the patient endurance of confessors and of martyrs
Such were : (i) Shalva, son of a vaivode of Akhal-
Tzikhe,d who would not hearken to the persuasive
entreaties of the Sultan tochange his faith (a.D. 1272) ;
(2) Demetrius, king of Iberia (A.D. 1289), who from
the first professed the faith of Christ before infuriated
Mohammedan teachers, and who after that received
the crown of martyrdom in Persia (a.D. 1289 — 1294) ;
c The district of Radcha is in the centre of Imereth, on
the river Rioni, not far from where it bends its course from
north to south. — Wakh. Gheoghr. p. 372.
a Akhal-Tzikhe" is a fortified town on the river of the same
name, in the Samtzkhe". It enjoys a beautiful climate, and
was the residence of a pasha, whom the Georgians called
Athabeg, and the Turks, the Pasha of Akhal-Tzikhe" and of
the whole Samtzkhe". — Wakh.' p. 84, etseq.

History of the Georgian Church. 127
(3) King Wakhtang, and a multitude of other Chris
tians and faithful pastors. Examples of earnest
life through faith were set by Basilius, known as
the uncle of the Catholicos Euphemius ; by Pimen,
who preached the Christian faith in Daghestan
among the mutinous inhabitants of the shores of the
Caspian Sea, renowned for his piety, and burning
with love and zeal for Christ's sake ; and by Antoni
Naokhrebuli who shut the mouth of preachers of
the Coran by his simple but powerful discussions.
Unfortunately for the Church, true Christians were
greatly diminished under the Tartar and the Mussul-
manrule. Through the general corruption of Mezkha,
the Christians of Imereth fell upon the property of
the Church, and many either took to reducing the
revenues of the churches and monasteries, or at all
events to turn them to their own use. With the
destruction of temples and of churches by the
Tartars, many waxed cold in their inward zeal for
the Faith and for good works.
The Catholicos Nicolai, both learned and zealous
for good works, alone maintained a Christian spirit
of zeal, and inspired with it all classes of the people.
Meanwhile Christians, having forgotten the faith in

128 History of the Georgian Church.
God, were made to acknowledge proofs of His provi
dence in terrible chastisements and other manifesta
tions, such as the yoke of the Tartar rule, appalling
earthquakes during the solemn festival of our Lord's
glorious resurrection, and a famine which for five
years raged over the whole of Iberia.

History of the Georgian Church. 129

CHAPTER VIII.
Correspondence between Queen Rusudana and the Roman
Court on the occasion of the appearance of Roman
monks, in Georgia — Invasion of Georgia by Tamerlan —
Flight of King Alexander, of Demetrius, and of others
into the wilderness — Attempt of the Mohammedans to
turn Colchis and Imereth to Islamism — Intentions of
the Pope regarding the Georgian Church — The Council
of Florence — Intentions of Lutheran preachers.
jjURING the reign of Queen Rusudana
(A.D. 1219 — 1239) began the first rela
tions of Iberia with the Western Chris
tians, on the occasion of the separation of these
from the Greek Church. What led to this was
the incessant incursions of Turks and Persians into
Georgia, and their strenuous efforts to exterminate K

130 History of the Georgian Church.
Christianity and to subject the country to Islamism.
Queen Rusudana applied by letter to Pope Gregory
IX., in 1239,1 and begged of him protection from
the Tartars. Instead of the assistance which she
asked, he sent her seven monks of the order of
Preachers (patres prcedicatores), whose errand was to
promote in Georgia the arrogant intentions of the
court of Rome. In his letter the Pope regretted
his inability to comply with the, queen's wishes,
while, with the usual crafty diplomacy of Rome, he
ceased not to flatter the queen, by praising the faith
of the Georgians, and their good name as Christians,
to try and persuade the queen to submit herself and
her people to the chair of St. Peter and to the
warden of the keys of the kingdom of Heaven. But
even when the predecessor of Gregory IX., Hono-
rius III., made the same propositions to Queen
Rusudana, she expressed her decided unwillingness
to submit to the Western Church. This, however,
did not hinder Georgians, together with Armenians,
from being ready to unite with soldiers of the West,2

1 Ap. Rayn. n. 9.
2 The Georgians, terrified by the invasions of Tartars and

History of the Georgian Church. 131
and to make common cause against the Saracens.
So great was the ardour with which this rising3 took
place that even women took up arms for the defence
of the Faith.
of Saracens, were compelled, at the request of the former, to
make common cause with them against the Saracens, who,
after destroying Ptolemais (A.D. 1291), the last refuge of
the Latins, took possession of the whole of Syria and of
Palestine. The Tartars, having joined the Georgian and the
Armenian troops to their own under their General Kaptchak,
succeeded in staying for awhile the progress of the Saracens.
But, after they had embraced Islamism, in union with the
Saracens, they proceeded to the subjugation of the whole
East (Marini Sancti, Hist. Belli Sacri, lib. xiii. cap. 8 ; and
Guil. Mengis in Chronico). The fears of the Georgians
were turned towards this invasion, as well as those of all
European sovereigns, not one of whom hesitated to fight for
the freedom of Christians iii the East.— Hist, of the Church,
Innok, vol. ii. p. 262, 1817 ; Vine. Belvac. de Reb. Orient.
lib. xxxii. c. 9.
3 We may see, in Vine. Belvac. de Reb. Orientis, lib. xxx.
cap. 74 — 76, to what extent rose the hatred of the Persians,
but especially that of the Tartars and of the Mongols, for the
Georgians. He mentions the irruption of the Persians into
Georgia, driven as they were from before Gengis-Khan from
the frontiers of Khorassan, who slew in Tiflis alone seven
thousand Christians. The Capuchin monks, admitted with
him to an audience of Gengis-Khan, saw on his throne two
Georgian Tsarevitchs, together with the Russian Prince
Yaroslav.
K 2

132 History of the Georgian Church.
In the year 1289 the preachers sent by Pope
Nicolas IV into Georgia met with a favourable
reception from the queen, though with no reference
whatever to Latinism. They, however, turned their
favourable reception by the queen into days of bitter
tears and of persecution for the Church ; and they
wrung from Rusudana leave to establish in Tiflis an
episcopate,4 with the bishop Johannes Florentinus,
of the order of Preachers, at the head of it.
II. In the year 1400 Tamerlan laid waste
Georgia,6 acting with the utmost cruelty, and inflicted
untold misery on the country, weakened as it had
been before his coming by numberless irruptions of
Persians and of Tartars. In this instance, however,
Georgia had, in certain respects, brought upon herself
the thunder of Tamerlan's vengeance, devastation

4 In Annal. Hist. Eccl. Baronii, vol. xv. pp. 213, 396,
mention is made of the deed of hand given by Pope John
XXII. to Johannes Florentinus, first Bishop of Tiflis. At
the same time the Pope sent pastorals to the king of Georgia
and to some of the principal inhabitants.
5 Bandr. Geogr. vol. ii. p. 299 ; Rayn. n. 94 ; Hist, de
Timur-Bec. by Shefer-eddin, lib. iii. ; Hist, of Russia of Polev.
vol. v. p. 206, 207.

. History of the Georgian Church. 133
and rapine, terrible even for Bajazet. Happily, the
slaughter did not last long. Tamerlan was obliged
to march against Bajazet ; and the Georgians, taking
advantage of his departure, sallied from their retreats
in woods and in mountains passes, returned to their
houses in ruins, and then, when the inhuman
Timur buried in the earth four thousand Armenians,
whom he had made prisoners after the desperate
defence of Sebastopolis, and went into Egypt and
Syria, they hastened to sow their fields and to com
mit to the earth troops of slaughtered brethren, in
order to prevent a pestilence. This happened
during the reign of George VII., king of Georgia.
III. In the midst of afflictions from without and
from within, at the time of Timur's invasion, the
Church of Iberia not only had no distinguished
teachers, but even hardly those that were necessary;
wherefore she had either to wait for such help for her
confirmation, or to crave and to receive at the hands
of the king and of the Catholicos such aid, in this
respect, as they could afford. And, in fact, King
Alexander I., who afterwards put on the habit of a
monk, and his successors, the Catholicos Michael
and David, sons of King George, ceased not to

134 History of the Georgian Church.
occupy themselves with the restoration of temples
and of churches destroyed by the enemy, with the
beautifying of monasteries in the wilderness, and
with the bringing back to the Church of many who
had embraced Islamism. Through their unflinching
zeal for the Faith, in the midst of persecution they
revived the broken hearts of Christians, whether
by their guidance or their advice,6 so as even to

6 The Turks always showed the Iberians so much prefer
ence over other nations, and treated them with so much
greater respect, that Georgian pilgrims to the holy places
were always exempt from the presents and from the tributes
exacted by the Turks from almost all other people. They
were allowed to enter Jerusalem armed, and with waving
i banners and raised standards ; and in the holy city both
'men and women of Georgia were allowed to carry arms
about them. The Turks and the Sultan of Egypt showed
so much consideration for Iberians that some of these were
allowed to form part of the sultan's body-guard ; and the
troop made up from among them by Sultan Selim I. was
called Mameluks. With these remarks agrees Bartholomeo
de Salignac, torn. 8, cap. 1 :— " Georgiani, quando Hie-
rosolymam eunt perigrinatum, Sultano (Egypto) tributum
non solvunt, sed in camel'is dromedariis et equis pom-
paticis venientes, erectis vexillis Hierosolyman ingrediuntur.
Horum feminae et mares armati incedunt. Pileis utuntur,
ut Turcae cubito altis ; Sultanus ac Turcae valde timent," etc.

History of the Georgian Church. 135:
draw upon them the notice and respect of their
enemies. IV. The pious king Alexander I. (A.D. 1414 — 1442),
having opposed to persecutions a heart firm and
steadfast, restored later, the temple of Mtzkhetha,

Even before him, Vincentius Belvacensis wrote of the warlike
education of Georgian women : — " Bellicosi sunt homines
.... Mulieres eorum (Georgianorum) ' equestris ordinis
doctse sunt ad praelium."— Fragm. de Reb. Or. ann. 1260,
lib. xxvi. cap. 43. Likewise writes the German traveller
Baumgarten, who lived in the xvith century (Itiner. lib. ii.
cap. 9). How much were Georgians dreaded by their
neighbours, how staunch in their adherence to the Greek
Eastern Church, and how devoted to the holy places, may
be seen from the counsel of the Armenian Haiton to the
Tartars, enemies of the Sultaii of Egypt, and from his
proposal to the Roman Pontiff, on the occasion of the arming
of the West against them, to take Georgians into the ranks of
Western warriors, as men both brave and warlike (see Hist.
Haith. Arm. cap. Iviii. and lix). The firmness of the
Georgians in the Christian faith among the enemies of the
Gospel, during innumerable and incessant invasions of those
foes who laid waste their country and did their utmost to
make them bend to the Coran, .excited at all times the
wonder of the West. Thus writes Michael Neander, who
lived at the beginning of the xvith century, in his book
Orbis terra; explicatio : — "Iberi professionemcgelestis doctrinas
inter infinitos quamvis potentissimos hostes, nihilominuS
hactenus constanter retinere dicuntur." — Vide " Asia Major."

136 History of the Georgian Church.
which exists at present. During the long years of
his reign he did not levy a single tax or tribute
on his subjects, he and his princes supporting them
selves by the work of their own hands. Having
from the first brought together into one kingdom
all the scattered principalities, without thinking of
the evil consequences of division, he nevertheless
divided his kingdom of Georgia,7 according to the
number of his sons, into the kingdoms of Karthli,
of Kakheth, and of Imereth.
V About that time shone with especial glory King
Demetrius, who embraced monasticism, and put on
the cowl as simple monk under the name of Damian-
He withdrew into the solitary life of a monk with this
object in view, to draw by his example other Chris
tians to the same vocation; so that solitudes which
had been without inhabitants became gradually
peopled with them. That immortal man, in the
midst of the arrogance of furious enemies, peace
ably sowed the seed of good deeds from his cell,

7 This division of the kingdom of Georgia into three
portions by King Alexander is a circumstance as yet not
proved from history.

History of the Georgian Church. 137
until he shone brightly by kindling in the life of
his countrymen both piety and zeal for works of
faith and the love of God.
Notwithstanding the many efforts of the Moham
medans to turn the whole of Iberia to Islamism, the
Church always abode firm in the faith of Christ.
Time, that destroyed so many monuments of the
faith and of the piety of our fathers, could not shake
those divine foundations on which the Church of
Christ is immoveably fixed, built as it is on the
foundation of the apostles and prophets, and adorned
with martyrs and teachers.
The gloom of persecutions did not succeed in
extinguishing the light of the orthodox faith, which
had shone over Iberia for more than a thousand years.
Even Colchis,8 together with Trapezus, over which
ruled the Emperor David Comnenes, being deprived
at that time of enlightened pastors, and laid waste
by Amyrates, and afterwards by Mohammedans
that succeeded them, did lose everything except
the faith, from which it could not swerve, even in
the years 1454 and 1455, dreadful and disastrous

a Laonic. Chalcocond. de Reb. Turc. lib. ii. viii. and ix.

138 History of the Georgian Church.
as they were both for the Church and for the
people.9 VI. To the persecutions against the Church, as it
were, groaning, in 1476, and in the following years
under the tyranny and revengefulness of Uzum
Hassan, who at that time ruled over Georgia, were
added, not once, but often, the efforts made by the
Latins to shake the orthodox faith, which had been
preserved undefiled for centuries. Their object was
firmly to establish in the minds of the Christians of
Georgia veneration for the Head of those of the
West, a veneration which was to be accomplished
by submission to his temporal government. A
fresh embassage from King Constantine III. to Pope
Alexander VI.10 was the fruit of the craft and of the

9 See Ducas Michaelis Ducas Nepotis Hist. Byz. p. 154,
155, for an account of the irruption of the Turks into
Mingrelia and Trapezus in the year 1457. Likewise Laonici
Chalcocond. de Reb. Turc. lib. viii. pp. 220, 248 ; Spanh. in
saec. xv. cap. 12, art. 3 ; Voyage de Contarini in Bergeret.
Fleury L'Hist. Eccles. liv. 118, § 122 ; Rayn. ad ann. 1496,
No. 21 and 22.
10 Baronii Annal. Hist. Eccl. vol. xv. p. 459. The Pope's
missive to Constantine, king of Georgia, is mentioned in
the Collection of Popish Bulls ; lib. vii. p. 369.

History of the Georgian Church. 139
repeated instances of the Romish monks ; for the
reluctance of the king to yield to the pretensions of
the popes of the West is more than probable. To
the praise of the Georgian Church must we again
remark that both the efforts of heretics and the wiles
of preachers of the Western Church were mostly
in vain. Neither persecutions such as those set on
foot by Pope Eugenius IV.11 against the Georgian

11 There was also present at the Council of Florence,
together with Dorotheus, Metropolitan of Trapezus, the
Georgian metropolitan Gregorius {alias Johannes), and one
of the princes of Georgia. The metropolitan Johannes,
called Gregorius by Isidore in his description of the Council
of Florence, to which he went, seeing the wiles of the West,
and the pretensions of the Emperor Palasologus, at the time
when it was necessary to sign a decision, escaped secretly
from Florence, went to Venice, and thence through Constan
tinople to Georgia. — Ancient Library, vol. vi. pp. 33 — 36 ;
Phil. Cyprii. Chron. pp. 288 — 292, ed. Francf. 1687;
Severinus Binius de Concil. torn. iv. p. 41 r.
In the History of Russia (copy of Nikon), at p. 145, we
read : — " The blessed Marcus, Metropolitan of Ephesus, was
not associated with them {i.e., with those who signed the
Council of Florence) in their vain and dangerous position ;
neither did the Iberian metropolitan Gregorius, nor Isacius
of Tyre, nor Sophronius of Gaza ; but they fled from them
and out of the city, every one his own way : the king

140 History of the Georgian Church.
metropolitan Gregorius and other Georgian gran
dees, who were present at the Council of Florence,
nor the flatteries called forth towards the Christians
of the Georgian Church, like those sent by the
doctors of Tubingen13 and Martin Crusius, did not

returned home by land, but Gregorius of Iberia went by
sea to his king at Venice, and thus escaped, and returned
without having yielded, not fearing the king's threatening, nor
his anger.
12 Phil. Cyprii. sub Patriarch. Jeremia, p. 425, writes as
follows :• — " Eadem Confessio" (that is, the Confession of
Augustin, or of Augsburg) '¦ a Domino Davide Ungnadio, Im-
peratoris nostri in aula Turcico legato Principi Georgianorum
Quarquare Atabag vocato, donata est, cum fratre Constan-
tinopoli moraretur. Qui princeps in Ibericam seri Geor-
gianam linguam transferri earn curavit, secumque in
regionem suam abduxit," etc. The teachers of Tubingen
who persuaded the Vaivode Quarquar to embrace the
Confession of Augsburg, in order to propagate the Lutheran
faith in Georgia, were Dr. Jacobi-Andrei, Gerlach, Anto-
nius, Sweitzer, and Martin Crusius, Professor at Tubingen.
This happened in the year 1576.
We learn from Georgian history that this Quarquar, son
of Atabeg Kaikhosrou, became Vaivode of Samtskheth in
1573. In 1580 he fell into the hands of the Turks, and,
having embraced Islamism at Constantinople, secured for
himself the influence of the Turkish sultans, and received as
his hereditary possession the province of Samtskheth, with

History of the Georgian Church. 141
succeed in shaking the hold of the orthodox faith
of Georgia, nor in inducing the orthodox Georgians
to change the faith they had received from the
Greeks.

the title of Atabeg. The history of these troublous times
for Georgia is told in detail in Historia sui temporis Jacobi
Tuani ; lib. lxxii.

142 History of the Georgian Church.

CHAPTER IX.
Greek Christians seek the protection of the kings of Georgia
— Sad consequences of the fall of the Greek empire
even for Georgia — Embassy of King Alexander I. to
Moscow to request protection for the Church and people
— Views of Shah-Abbas towards Georgia — Embassy of
King Alexander II. to Moscow — Anxiety of the Russian
Theodore Iohannovitch and Boris Godynoff for the
safety of the Georgian Church — Invasion of Georgia by
Shah-Abbas. jS the Turkish power increased in Ana
tolia, so were the Greeks obliged to
seek the protection of the kings of
Georgia (A.D. 1490). These retired into the interior
of Georgia, and lived there in peace, as long as the
iron hand of the Turk was not raised to exterminate
the Christian faith, even in the kingdom of Georgia,

History of the Georgian Church. 143
bordering on that in which they now had to seek
their future destiny. Until the year 1827 the
Greeks always had a special bishop of their own,
under the name of Akhtalic, so called from the
small place Akhtal,a to the south of Tiflis, where
they took their abode. The last of them was
Joachim, who died in Georgia in 1827; their
eparchy, however, was subject to the Catholicos of
Georgia. The fall of the Greek empire had woeful conse
quences for the orthodoxy of Iberia ; for the Greek
emperors had always protected the Lazes, the
Colchians, the Suani, and all the inhabitants of
Georgia against the Persians and the Turks,
sworn enemies of Christian Iberia. From the
taking of Constantinople, and the increase of
Turkish power in Asia Minor, the Iberian Church
lost her protectors, and the inhabitants of Akhal-
tsikhe, and of other districts to the west of it, were
obliged to become Mahomedans.

¦ Akhtala is a small town in Shignith-Sakheti, or Inner
Sakhe"t, where there is a remarkable well of bitumen. — Wakh
Gheoghr. p. 314.

144 History of the Georgian Church.
Imereth, and the lower parts of Karthalinia and of
Kakheth, remained faithful to the Gospel, and suf
fered for the Cross. The only resource then left
was to trust in God and in the orthodox Church of
Russia (A.D. 1492). The king of Kakheth, Alex
ander I.,1 sent messengers to the Tzar John III.,
deploring the persecutions to which his people were
subject, the devastation of the country, the churches
in ruins, the ignorance and degraded state of the
clergy in those barbarous times, and the seditions
and murders in the midst of Christian civilization.
Alexander, addressing John III. as the hope of
Christians, as the support of the poor, and as the
zealous votary of S. Nicolas, begged of him help
and protection ; but circumstances prevented the
Russian Tzar from becoming at that time the protec
tor of this oppressed Church. The Turks breathed
vengeance against the Iberians, and ceased not to
urge the pasha of Anatolia to fall upon them, to
take their land, and to turn them to Islamism. Un
fortunately, internal discord became as it were the
cause for which fire and sword laid waste the whole

1 Hist, of the Emp. of Russia, by Karamzin, vol. vi. 230.

History of the Georgian Church. 145
of Georgia, now at the hands of the Persians and
then at those of the Turks. Iberia sighed and lost
all spirit ; her enemies did all that might be ex
pected from barbarous times and from the rule of
war of those days, which was to sanction by law
every kind of evil in "an enemy's country without
defender or protector on either side. The pastors
of the Church were silent ; the kings, afraid of the
resentment of powerful neighbours, could take no
effectual measures for the defence of oppressed
Christianity ;2 schools were closed ; God's Word
was hardly remembered in secret, in the feelings
and in the hearts of believers weighed down and
afflicted, and but seldom heard in churches then in
ruins. Priests on their way into Georgia, visiting
from curiosity churches standing apart and in soli^
tudes, found in many of them only remains of rich
offerings of former times. King Alexander, having
explained to them the cause of this desolation;

5 Johannis Leunclav. Supplem. Annal. Turcic. pp. 354, 375 ;
•Pandectas 'Hist. Turcic. cap. 254. Therein are described the
violence of the Turks and the government of Beglarbek,
established in Tiflis, in Mingrelia, Gurias, and in all Georgia,
with all the overbearing conduct of the Turkish pashas. L

146 History of the Georgian Church.
attributed it to the division of Iberia into princi~
palities. " We are surrounded," said he, " by un
believers ; but we still praise the true God."
IV. At last came a new and strange season of trial
for the Georgian Church. Oppressed by internal
discord, and by the dissensions of ambitious and
unsettled princes, Georgia was again exposed to a
severe persecution on the part of the Persians. These
enemies of the Christian name ceased not to lay
their sacrilegious hands on the riches of Iberia. The
messengers of King Alexander to Moscow lamented
the fearful misfortunes of their country, and repre
sented how the great Shah-Abbas, having endea
voured to leave to himself the protection of the
kingdom of Georgia, made in reality the Georgians
enemies of the Russian Tzar.
V. In the year 1587 King Alexander II., having
declared himself a vassal of Russia, sent to Moscow
the priests Joachim, Cyril, and others ;3 and,
pressed on all sides as he was by the Persians
and the Turks, entreated with tears the Russian
Tzar Theodore Iohannovitch to take Iberia under
3 Karamzin, Russian Emp. vol. x. p. 6^.

History of the Georgian Church. 147
his protection, and thus to rescue her from the
grasp of infidels. " The present disastrous times,"
wrote he, " for the Christian faith were foreseen by
many men inspired of God.4 We, brethren of the
same faith with Russians, groan under the hand of
wicked men. Thou, crowned head of the orthodox
faith, canst alone save both our lives and our souls.
I bow to thee with my face to the earth, with all
my people, and we shall be thine for ever." The
Tzar Theodore Iohannovitch having taken Iberia
under his protection, busied himself earnestly in
rendering her assistance and in works of faith. He
sent into Georgia teachers in holy orders for the
regulation of Church ceremonies, and painters to
decorate the temples with images of saints ; and
Lob, patriarch of all the Russias, addressed to
the Georgian king a letter touching the faith. King
Alexander humbly replied that the favourable
answer of theTzar had fallen upon him from Heaven,

4 Among such fathers, the reverend Father Arsenius is
remarkable for his having foretold the miseries of the
irruption of Shah-Abbas. His bones rest in the solitude of
Davido-Garedj.
L 2

I48 History of the Georgian Church.
had brought him out of darkness into light ; that
the clergy of the Russian Church were angels for
the clergy of Iberia, buried in ignorance. The
Prince Zvenigorod, ambassador to Georgia, pro
mised in the name of Russia the freedom of all
Georgia, and the restoration of all her churches
and monasteries.
Notwithstanding the promise of help on the part
of Russia made by Theodore Iohannovitch, and re
iterated by his successor, Boris Godynoff (A.D. 1594),
the fear of vengeance from Persia was so great
among the Iberians that King Alexander, who still
called himself a vassal of Russia, was obliged to go
to war with Persia. The words uttered by Alex
ander's son George in presence of the Russian
ambassador Tatitcheff", and the words of the Iberian
messengers to the boyars, show the terror caused
by the circumstances of that time. " Never," said
George — "never did Iberia suffer more woefully
than at present : we are under the feet of the
Sultans and of the Shah ; and both long to drink
our blood and to take all we have. We have given
ourselves of our own accord to Russia ; let Russia,
then, receive us with deeds, and not with words.

History of the Georgian Church. 149:
It is no time for delay ; soon there will not be one
man left to embrace the Cross with useless attach
ment to the only sovereign that can defend it. He
may save us. Turks, Persians, Kumiks, rush upon
us on all sides ; and we call to you most humbly.
Come and save us. We wail on account of the
infidels, and therefore have we given ourselves up
with our heads to the orthodox Tzar, that he may
protect us ; but at present we weep over our homes,
our churches, and our monasteries in ruins — our;
children in captivity, our shoulders under the
yoke." VI. On the 7th of October, 1604, dawned the re
surrection of Georgia, and of her ancient glory. But
her future happiness required of her yet other, if
not greater, sacrifices. The Tzarevitch Constantine,:
who had embraced the Mahomedan religion in
Persia after renouncing the faith of his ancestors,:
showed himself an enemy by murdering his father
Alexander and his brother. The chief men of the
state, fearing the Mahomedan king, but encouraged
by the envoys from Russia, required a Christian
king. At last the uneasiness and agitation of the
people were allayed only by Tatitcheff 's notification

150 History of the Georgian Church.
that the king might only be a Christian, and by
the will of Tzar Boris Godynoff that he would
deliver Iberia from Mahomedan thraldom.
Shah- Abbas, having won victories everywhere
during his long reign, whether by main force or
through cunning, became an object of terror, an
impending ruin and desolation to the whole king
dom of Georgia. Every successive exaction of his
from Georgia was made to fill the treasury of Persia,
to reduce the Christian faith to a lower and lower
state, and to establish the law of the Coran. Seeing
that the native kings and princes were in no hurry
to bow the knee before him, he thundered against
Georgia, treading under foot everything on his way
to Tiflis, bathing everything in blood, reducing to
ashes towns, villages, churches, and monasteries.
He showed himself a ferocious and proud man,
and constrained all to lay down their arms. The
Christians of Georgia, feeling no confidence in their
strength for the war, put their whole trust in God.
The churches and the monasteries were filled with
earnest supplicants ; fasts were proclaimed, and
processions with the cross formed in various places ;
all confessed their sins and wept over them, heark-

History of the Georgian Church. 1 5 1
ened to the instructions of their pastors, and, pre
paring for death, partook of the Holy Sacrament
Shah-Abbas, having gathered together in churches
Christians faithful to the Gospel, burned them by
thousands. Even the bones of saints and of other
champions for the Faith were not left to rest in the
earth, to which they had been committed in hope
of the resurrection. Yet, for all that, Christianity
was not weakened in Georgia; the faith which
always triumphs over troubles and difficulties
shone yet brighter among Georgians through
them all.
At last Shah- Abbas, having slaked his thirst for
blood, began to feel God's hand heavy on him. His
torians relate that many Persians, when rushing into |
temples to plunder them, were struck with blindness,
and that others, witnessing the wonders wrought by
the power of Christ, turned Christians. Shah- Abbas
himself could not demolish God's spiritual building,
against which the power of hell cannot prevail, being
terrified at strange rumours concerning his army,
which took to admiring Christianity and to wonder
at it ; as well as at evident interpositions of God's
providence in favour of his servants. He showed

152 History of the Georgian Church,
his feeling of dread by the restitution of images of
the Assumption of the B. V. Mary, and of the
most Holy Trinity, that wrought miracles, brought,
among other spoils, from a monastery built by
Queen Tamar upon a high mountain among the
defiles of Ksais5 and of Aragv, and by the image
of S. Eustathius, sent as a present into Karthalinia ;
by offering the valuable hilt of his sword, and by
other gifts in acknowledgment of the Christian
courage and valour of the Georgians.
5 Karamzin, Russian Emp. vol. xi. p. 59.

History of the Georgian Church. 153

CHAPTER X.
Glorious martyrs and other remarkable persons in defence'
and support of the Church — Desolate state of Georgia —
Embassy of King Theimuraz I. to Moscow — Georgian
kings who embraced Islamism sit on the Christian
throne of the kingdom— The Metropolitan of Georgia is
present at the Council of Moscow, called together
against Nicon.
|ATIVE historians relate with honour the
tale of misfortunes that befel Georgia in
the- xvith and xviith centuries. Kings
and grandees of the realm, who had experienced
the vanity of the world, and who, -during the
whole course of their life, had not seen the happy
days of a Church at peace, put on the cowl, and
became pastors of the people, in order that, by
setting the example of Christian devotedness, they

154 History of the Georgian Church-
might contribute towards the consolation of the
Church, then in despair of either rest or peace.
Among such we may single out —
r. Simeon (A.D. 1532), Tzarevitch of Imereth,
and Bishop of Bitchvinta (Pitiyunta).
2. Malachi (A.D. 1582), Catholicos of Ap'hkhazia
and of Imereth, of the princely race of the Aba-
shides. 3. Melchizedek (A.D. 1 591), Bishop of Gaetan,
son of the Tzarevitch Bagrat.
4. David (a.D. 1592), Tzarevitch of Georgia, who
became a monk and lived in the solitude of a
narrow cell as simple monk.
5. Georgius (A.D. 1594), Tzarevitch of Kartha
linia, named Gerasim among his order.
6. Bagrat, brother of King David, called Barnabas
among his order.
7. Luarsab, king of Karthalinia, named the
"Gideon of Iberia" for his giving peace to the
Church, both within and without, and called
"saint" by reason of his devotion and piety.
Others likewise sealed with their martyrdom, in
presence of the people, the truth of their faith. Such
were —

History of the Georgian Church, 155
I. Theodorus, priest of Manglis.3
2. Georgius, king of Karthalinia, poisoned by
the Persians.
3. Simeon (A.D. 1619 — 1629), also king of Kar
thalinia, son of Luarsab, who, after being prisoner
at Constantinople, was put to death by poisoning.
4. Luarsab II. (A.D. 1603 — 1616), king of Kar
thalinia, who was strangled for his confession of
the name of Christ in presence of the Shah of
Persia. The Iberian Church celebrates his feast
on the 2 ist of June.
5. Ketevan (A.D. 1624),1 queen of Kakheth, who

" Manglis is a town of Karthli, with a beautiful church
that has never been injured, built by Constantine. The
Osmanlis are said to have respected it on account of what
they took to be Mahomet riding on a lion, painted on the
ceiling of the church. Wakhtang Gurgaslan made it a
bishopric, whose bishop rules over the country beyond the
river Ktsia, as far as the Trialeth. — Wakh. p. 170.
1 The biography of Queen Ketevan and her martyrdom
was published in Paris in 1833, at the expense of the
Asiatic Society. Her heroic endurance of the most cruel
torture was witnessed by Catholic monks of the Augustine
order (Appam. in Annal. 1617, n. 9; Wisel. Med. Hist.
Sept. III). Therein also do we read in detail the persecutions
of the Georgian Church under Shah-Abbas. A short

156 History of the Georgian Church.
suffered the most cruel martyrdom for her firmness
in the Christian faith, on the arrival of Shah- Abbas
into Georgia. The Church commemorates her
death on the 14th of September.
Those who followed the example of these kings
and great men of the state in their piety and in
their zeal for the Faith are mentioned by historians
in such number that the Catholicos Antoni, in
his praise of the glory of martyrdom, compares
them to an host, armed and fighting against the
world and the devil, and dying solemnly for the
Faith like victorious men. One irruption of Tamer
lan cost the Iberian Church 300,000 of her sons.
In towns and villages, and in mountain passes,
formerly teeming with population, there remain only
faint traces of the former inhabitants. The tra
veller through Georgia sees only stone foundations
of churches, ruined walls, the ruins of houses,
scattered fragments of the images of saints and
of crosses. This spectacle meets him in general in
account of them may also be seen in Fleuri's Hist, of his
own Church ; vol. Iv. p. 694, Latin ed. Her martyrdom has
also been sung in Georgian in the verses of Prince Dimitri
-Bagration.

History of the Georgian Church. 157
the western and southern districts of Iberia, which
they call Samkheth. Mountain recesses, the abodes
of pious anchorites, on steep and rugged rocks, like
bird's nests, innumerable as they are in Georgia,
show proof of Christian self-denial. On seeing those
places one cannot help feeling surprised ; and, in
voluntarily despising the pride of life and the
vanity of the world, while admiring the beauty of
the scenery, one is led to cherish inward veneration
for those indefatigable pioneers of faith and piety.
II. Meanwhile risings of the nation and the storms
of war crippled the efforts of the Church of Georgia;
by depriving the country of her best province of
Samtskhe\ This was accomplished by the Turkish
arms, under King George, who was poisoned by
order of the Shah of Persia because he would not
embrace the religion of Mahomet. The upper
parts of Karthalinia and of Djavakheth, taken by
force by the conquering hordes of Turks, in the
very midst of the provinces of Georgia, fell away
from the Faith, and turned to Islamism ; and the
churches of orthodox Georgians were closed.
The king of Kakheth, Theimuraz I., grandson of
the murdered king, Alexander I., sent, in 1619,

158 History of the Georgian Church.
Igumene Chariton as ambassador to the Russian
Tzar Michael Theodorovitch,2 with the urgent and
humble request that his lordship would have pity
on his fellow-Christians, bound to him by the same
faith, to take his part and to protect them from the
persecutions of Shah-Abbas of Persia, from whom
he had hidden himself in Bashitshina, a province of
Dadian. He also entreated the Russian sovereign
to intercede with the Shah for the release of his
mother and of his two sons, Leon and Alexander,
whom the Shah had taken captive. In his letter
to King Theimuraz, he represented his wretched
condition in these words : " Our tears and our
miserable estate show you, O exalted sovereign,
that our light is turned into gloom, that our sun no
longer warms us, that our moon no more gives her
light, and that our bright day is turned into night.
For my part, I am come to this, that I wish I never
were born rather than see the orthodox faith de
stroyed, the land of Iberia laid waste before my

2 This name, and those of other persons sent on that
embassy, are mentioned in the register of the synod, printed
with the service-book of the Patriarch Ioasaph in 1668.

History of the Georgian Church. 159
eyes, and the name of God no longer praised in
our churches." The conquest of Georgia by an
orthodox and powerful nation was more agreeable
to her people than their bondage to Mahomedans.
It was welcome by the whole of Georgia — that is,
by Karthalinia, by Kakheth, by Imereth, and even
by the reigning prince Dadian. Russia, on her
side, did all she could : she chastised the prince
of Daghesthan, who kept Georgia in constant
alarm through his incursions ; and, for the time,
gave rest to the country by making peace with
Persia. III. But Georgia, which, despite all the invasions
of the Turks and of the Persians, had succeeded in
keeping the Faith inviolate, had nevertheless to
undergo yet greater misfortunes. The Shahs of
Persia, taking advantage of the troubled times of
Georgia, broken up, as it were, into bits, laid their
bloody hands upon her on all sides, and determined
to make every effort to turn her to their own creed.
The people, weakened, reduced to beggary, and
panic-struck, appeared to the Persians to be in a
state ready to embrace Islamism, and thus also,
and once for all, to receive the Persian yoke.

160 History of the Georgian Church.
Wherefore the politics of the Persian court werej
with its usual vigilance, directed to this, whether
by threats or by flatteries, to bring to Islamism,
if not actually the people of Georgia, at least her
kings. The Persians succeeded in this; and Rostom,
Tzarevitch of Georgia, who was brought up in
Persia, and who embraced Islamism, mounted the
throne of Karthalinia in 1634, bringing with him
every kind of vice (A.D. 1634— 1658). Ashamed
neither of his own disgraceful apostasy from the
Christian faith, nor yet of his years — he was then
sixty-seven — he enforced the Mahomedan religion
in his dominions, and oppressed his subjects, obliging
them, especially in the first year of his reign, to
renounce Christianity. He showed his unworthy
zeal for Islamism, especially in his dealings with
the Catholicos Endemon. This man, imprisoned
in spite of his old age, but despising the threats of
the king, ceased not night and day by prayers and
and with tears to exhort the wailing nation, and
the pastors thereof, to abide faithful to the faith
of their fathers ; but Rostom ordered him to be
thrown down the highest rock in Tiflis, from a

History of the Georgian Church 161
height of upwards of three hundred feet. On the
other hand, Rostom's queen, Maria, protected the
Church to the utmost of her power.
IV To Rostom succeeded his adopted son, Wakh
tang (A.D. 1658 — 1675), also a Mahomedan, who
changed his name to that of Shahnabaz. The first
years of his reign were also hard and heavy for his
Christian subjects, but afterwards he favoured them,
albeit in secret ; and, in all the good he did for the
Church, he always acted through his twin brother
Domentius, whom he had himself appointed Catho
licos of Iberia. After the melancholy martyrdom
of this king (A.D. 1676 — 1688), his son George
mounted the throne of Iberia, having embraced the
Mahomedan faith, even after his father, by con
straint of Shah-Abbas IL of Persia. Having, like
his father, shown favour to Christianity through
the Catholicos Nicolai, of the princely house of
the Amilakhvors, he did as much good as the
Tzarevitch Heraclius, called among Mahomedans
Nazaralikhan, who after him occupied the throne
through intrigue, did evil. The first act of Hera
clius was to depose the Catholicos Nicolai ; after
which followed sundry other alterations in the
M

1 62 History of the Georgian Church.
government of the state, evidently to the injury
of the Church.
Faithful pastors of the Church, however, ceased
not, in the midst of troubles, seditions, and persecu
tions, to teach the true Faith with care and earnest
ness. So much so that, at the invitation of the
Patriarchs Paicius of Alexandria and Macarius of
Antioch, called to Moscow by the Tzar Alexis
Michaelovitch in the year 1665, to the synod held
against Nicon,3 were also present the Georgian
Metropolitan Epiphanius, with Philotheon of Tra-
pezus, and the Georgian Archimandrite Pachomius.
Among the happy results of that synod for Georgia
were the reconstruction of the hierarchy, and bright
examples of holy life among the clergy, among men
of the world, and among all members of the Church
in general.
V. At last, in the year 1701, Wakhtang VI. sat on
the throne of Georgia ; he was a sovereign who
feared God, a zealous Christian, a wise and prudent
politician. He secured the happiness of Georgia by
enacting laws which to this day go by the name of
3 And also near the end of the book.

History of the Georgian Church. 163
the Code of King Wakhtang.4 These laws, founded
4 This Code is divided into eight parts, and contains the
following laws :-—
1. Laws of King Wakhtang VI, framed by himself on
the foundation of the Greek Procheirons, in combination with
local laws. They contain 276 articles.
2. The Greek Laws, which consist of 420 articles, bor
rowed from the ordinances and decrees framed by the Greek
emperors Leon Mudri (a.D. 886 — 911), Alexander and Con-
stantinus VI. Porphyrogenetes (a.D. 912 — 919). These laws
were introduced into Georgia at the request of King
Wakhtang by Eastern patriarchs.
3. The Armenian Laws, which consist of 431 articles.
They are an extract from the laws of ancient Armenia, found
in the temple of Estchmiadzin, capital of the Armeno-
Gregorian Christians.
4. The Laws of King George VI, who reigned in Georgia
from 13 1 8 to 1346 ; they consist of 46 articles.
5. The Laws of Agbug, of the Atabek of Samtzkheth,
written in 1446, on the foundation of former ordinances left
him by his uncle Atabek Beka, who ruled over the province
of Atabeg from 1361 to 1391. They consist of 176 articles.
6. The Laws of Moses, drawn from the Bible ; in num
ber 52.
7. The Laws of the Catholicos, written by the Iberian
Catholicos Eudemus II., in the year 1667. They are 24
in number. They are a selection from the Greek Nomo-
canon. The shortness of these laws does not prove the non
existence in Georgia of other laws, properly ecclesiastical.
For there was in Georgia, besides a short Nomocanon
M 2

164 History of the' Georgian Church.
on religion, allayed warlike passions, and set limits

printed with the service-books, a complete Nomocanon of
the Sixth CEcumenic Council, by S. John Postnik, and a full
set of ordinances or decrees of the Council of Trull, once in
possession of the Emperor Constantine, grandson of the
Emperor Heraclius. To these we may add the Procheiron
of King Leon the Wise and of Constantine ; the questions and
answers of Timotheus, Archbishop of Constantinople ; the
account of the Seventh CEcumenic Council ; also the Rolay
Books (Basilicon) of the Emperor Basilius of Macedon (a.D.
767 — 886), and portions of the Nomocanon of Johannes
Scholasticus, and of the Patriarch Photius, translated into
Georgian by Euphemius Sviatovorets, who died on Mt.
Athos about A.D. 1020, and others. The ancient MS. of this
Nomocanon, written in the year 1350, on parchment, in
ecclesiastical characters, is now deposited in St. Petersburg,
in the Imperial Academy of Sciences. It was discovered in
Vologda by the. Archeologue P.M. Stroev ; it wants the
beginning, the end, and a few pages : size, 4to ; pages, in all
190. — Apart from this Nomocanon, there are in Georgian
books of degrees of kindred, and two other Nomocanons,
different both as to matter and volume. Some few cursory
remarks on this book are found in Historical Review of the
Nomocanons by Rosenkampf, pp. 497 — 516.
8. Local Customs, that have the force of laws, and which
exist in Georgia by tradition. These ordinances, put down
in writing by King Wakhtang, contain 74 articles.
This Code of Wakhtang was translated from the Georgian
into Russian, and printed, in 1837, at the Senate Press, in
St. Petersburg.

History of the Georgian Church. 165
to the love of war of the peoples inhabiting Georgia.
When once on the throne he reinstated the Catho
licos Nicolai, who had been deposed by Herac
lius, into the dignity of his office ; for he was a man
renowned in his time both as theologian and as
philosopher ; and after the death of Nicolai, Wakh
tang intrusted the chair of Catholicos to his brother,
Domentius III.
The Church, which had hitherto been troubled by
the wars with the Turks and by the internal dissen
sions of the kingdom, found rest and experienced
happier days under the sceptre of Wakhtang, though
not for long. Among his deeds in behalf of the
Church were the building of new temples and the
restoration of many that were dilapidated ; the
calling together of a synod for the purpose of the
establishment of the orthodox Faith in all respects
in harmony with the Greek and the Russian
Churches ; the institution and regulation of Church
discipline; the restoration of monasteries and of
hermitages that were celebrated for their ancient
foundations ; his bringing a printing-press to Tiflis,5
•' By command of Wakhtang the following books were

1 66 History of the Georgian Church.
and the publication of books of devotion and for
Divine service, all of which may yet be procured
easily for use in churches and for edification at home.
He opened schools, generally in connection with
monasteries, wherein children of the best families
were taught for the most part the Holy Scriptures
and Philosophy, after the scholastic method of those
days ; he sanctioned and confirmed the revenues
given by former kings to monasteries and to her
mitages, and he secured sufficient maintenance to
those that were not adequately endowed.6 At that

also printed : — the Gospel, the Apostles, the Psalter, the
Service-Book, a breviary, a Book of Prayers, and an Aka-
thist to the B. V. Mary. This last is printed in the civil
character. 6 Constantinus Porphyrog., in his treatise De Adm. Imp.
seu Antiq. Constant, pars ii. cap xlv, bears witness to the
primitive zeal of the kings and of the people of Georgia for
Christian devotion, and to their readiness to send offer
ings to Jerusalem. The Armenian Hai'tun also, in offering to
Pope Clement V. advantageous measures for an expedition
against the Sultan of Egypt, who persecuted Christianity,
speaks of the kings of Georgia as of the most devoted of all
Christians that worshipped at our Saviour's sepulchre, and
withal most warlike. " Sunt enim," says he, " devotissimi
Christiani et potentes et multi, atque strenui bellatores."
Hist. Orient, cap. lviii.

History of the Georgian Church. 167
time monasteries were everywhere abodes of science
and centres of civilization and of enlightenment for
the country. The Georgian Church, which flourished
during his reign, so soon enriched herself that, in
a very short time, she was able to send valuable
offerings to the monasteries of Mt. Athos and to
others, elsewhere in Greece.7 Historians relate that

7 The Greek monasteries, founded by deeds granted by
kings of Georgia, own to this day labourers, vineyards,
gardens, and lands in Georgia. Their archimandrites, who
worthily administered their churches in Georgia, built con
ventual houses and churches, of which some are still in exist
ence, while others are in ruins, or were left uncared for
during the troubles of the country. Such are the following : —
(1) a church dedicated to the Holy Cross in Tiflis, under the
administration of an archimandrite of the Patriarch of Jeru
salem (the present (1843) Patriarch of Jerusalem, Athanasius,
was archimandrite in Georgia until the year 1803) ; (2) a
church dedicated to S. Catherine, martyr, connected with the
monastery on Mt. Sinai ; (3) a church dedicated to the B. V.
Mary, in the village of Dirba, under the administration of an
archimandrite of the Patriarch of Jerusalem ; (4) a church
dedicated to S. Catherine, martyr, in the village of Megreba ;
(5) a church dedicated to the B. V. Mary of Iberia, managed
by an archimandrite of Mt. Athos ; (6) another dedicated to
the thaumaturge Nicolas, on the mountains of Khodash,
now vacant ; (7) a church dedicated to the Annunciation of
the B. V. Mary, in connection with the monastery of Cyprus;

1 68 History of the Georgian Church.
Wakhtang sent to Jerusalem, as an offering to the
Holy Sepulchre, the sum — a very large one for those
days — of 2000 tumans (or 20,000 roubles) ; and he
received for that a number of bones and of wonder
working images, copies of the B. V. Mary of Okona,b
which has long been feasted on the 30th of July.
This image was at first discovered in the monastery
Gaenat, afterwards brought into Russia, and is
now found in possession of the Georgian princes,
descendants of King Wakhtang VI., in the village of
Liskova, of the government of Nijegorod.

(8) there are two churches in Imereth, managed by two
Greek archimandrites.
All those churches possess in Georgia and in Imereth
labourers, villages, arable lands and forests, vineyards and
gardens, and some of them houses and monasteries in
Tiflis. b Okona, celebrated convent in the Karthli, north of the
Kur, between the river Phtza and Nulis-Tsqali, in a delightful
neighbourhood. — Wakh. Gheoghr. p. 264.

History of the Georgian Church 169

CHAPTER XL
King lesse — Catholicos Domentius — Bondage of Georgia
under the Turks — Assistance given to Georgia by
Nadir-Shah — Deeds of the Georgian emperor Solo
mon I. — Deeds of Heraclius II. in behalf of the Church
— Efforts of Western missionaries in Georgia, and
banishment of the Catholicos Antoni I. into Russia —
Men who helped the Church, either by their life or by
their knowledge. \Y a misfortune, which, however, did not
last long for the Church, Wakhtang,
fearing the vengeance of the Shah of
Persia, and moved by other political consider
ations, was obliged to abdicate the throne, to
go into Russia, and, to his great grief, to
see sitting on his own throne, even at the time

170 History of the Georgian Church.
of his departure, lesse,1 who welcomed Islamism
into Georgia from the Turks. Mounted on the
throne, that apostate brought with him every kind
of vice taught by the laws of the false prophet.
The Catholicos Domentius and John Saakadze,
superior of the hermitage of Davido-Garedj, unwil
ling and unable to endure the horrors and the law
lessness of those unhappy times, helped to unmask
the real intentions of the Mahomedan king then
sitting on the Christian throne of Georgia,
which were to destroy, by his example, the good
results of Christian temperance and self-denial
among his Christian subjects. By so doing he
armed against himself the pastors of the Church
When they exposed him, he excused himself by the
religion which he professed ; so that it only remained
for the Christians to pray that those dangerous and
disastrous days for the Church might be shortened ;
and soon God's providence put an end to the sen
sual life of that ungodly king by a most horrible
death.

1 Father of the Catholicos Antoni I., celebrated for his
intellect and for his works.

History of the Georgian Church. 171
II. To the sad circumstances of those troublous
times was added another great misfortune for the
Church : an irruption into Georgia of the Persians,
who laid her waste and carried off with them some
of her people captive, and a quantity of spoil. No
sooner had the invading hordes of Persia quitted
her borders than Georgia was again, from 1723 to
1 73 1, subjected to the bondage of the Turks, who
succeeded in establishing their power, by giving
to the country a pasha, whose residence was in
Tiflis. This fresh servitude of Georgia was the more
onerous, as the Persians, by no means inclined to
yield to the Turks, made incessant incursions, every
one of which laid waste the land and deprived it of
inhabitants. Every fresh arming of the Turks
required funds for the maintenance of the war, to
say nothing of the taxes continually levied, not
only on the people, but even on bishops and on
monasteries. This time of bondage cost the
Church many of her sons; nevertheless, many
Georgians showed themselves strong in the Faith,
and by their firmness excited the wonder even of
the enemies of the Cross of Christ. The Catho-

172 History of the Georgian Church
licos Domentius ventured to appear at Constanti
nople before the Sultan, and to plead for the
liberty, the peace, and the prosperity of the Church.
Unfortunately, however, his pleading did not pro
duce any great result. Through the pasha's
artifice Domentius was put in prison on one of the
islands of Greece ; and in his chair was placed a
sacrilegious individual who had bought of the
pasha the Episcopate; an office that cannot be
purchased. The Catholicos Domentius remained
in exile until the death of this usurper of his chair.
This dreadful trial for the Church, which lasted
until 1744, was put an end to by the Georgian
kings Theimuraz and Heraclius, who reigned at
one and the same time in Karthalinia and in
Kakheth. III. About this time Nadir-Shah, remarkable for
his opposition to the exploits of King Heraclius II.
(A.D. 1736— 1747), for faithful service in the ex
pedition to India, supplied him with troops which
enabled him to drive away the Turks from the
borders of Iberia. Meanwhile, no sooner did the
Church seem to rest and to be free from the
yoke of the Turks than a terrible foe appeared in

History of the Georgian Church. 173
Nadir-Shah himself. Apparently he favoured the
Church, then expiring and oppressed ; but, feigning
himself a protector of the people, he prepared a
greater evil for the Church, and a yoke heavier
than that of the Turks. The king of Kakheth,
Theimuraz II., while bound to this pretended
liberator, soon found that his pity was as danger
ous for Iberia as even his hatred could be. He
found no other means of assistance for his country
than, quitting Georgia, to go himself in person and
lay the request of his whole people before the
throne of Russia, that was of the same faith with
him, and there to sue for help to the tottering
kingdom and to its oppressed Christianity. Thei
muraz II. (a.d. 1762), starting for Russia, adjured all
the nation in the porch of the temple to defend the
Christian Faith, attacked by Turks and Persians ;
he presented to the clergy and to the people his
grandson Prince George, then only twelve years
old, girt on him his sword, blessed him with the
Cross that gives us life, and proclaimed him king
of Karthalinia, under the protection of his son
Heraclius II., king of Kakheth.
Heraclius (a.D. 1762 — 1796), being left king of

174 History of the Georgian Church.
the kingdoms of Kakheth and of Karthalinia,
which had hitherto been separate, turned his at
tention to the internal condition of his kingdom,
and for a time procured rest for the Church. Tu
mults and dissensions, that burst out in Persia,
through the ambition of men aspiring to the throne,
gave him an opportunity of encouraging the Chris
tians in works of faith and piety, and of confirming
the faith and good works among the people. During
a short time of peace he brought a printing-press
to Tiflis, and printed Church books; such as
Octoichos, the Flower triodon, the Lent triodon,
the Gospel, the Book of Psalms, the Acts of the
Apostles, and the Epistles ; the Ritual, the Missal,
the Book of Prayers, the Book of Hours, and an
Akathist to the B. V Mary.
IV Meanwhile Imereth was exposed to great
dangers on the part of the Turks, from whom that
country was suffering as much as Georgia had
hitherto suffered from the Persians. A multitude
of Christians perished by the sword of the votaries
of the Coran, and others inclined still more to the
Mahomedan faith. Soon, may be, even the memory
of Christianity would have disappeared, as it had

History of the Georgian Church. 175
done among the Ap'hkhazes and the Lazes, had not
the Russian army hastened to the rescue. By the
help of these the Turkish army was driven from the
frontiers of Imereth, of Guria, and of Mingrelia ;
and King Solomon I., who had hitherto concealed
himself among the mountains, returned to his
people. By the treaty of 1774, between Russia
and the Turks, in which Mingrelia alone was ceded , ¦
to them, the shameful tribute paid to the Sultan „-
in girls and boys was put an end to. King Herac
lius II. obtained the same results in his relations
with Persia.
V King Solomon I. (A.D. 1763— 1782), who con
firmed the Christian faith in Imereth, and who
for that reason is justly called by historians "the
light of Christianity and the support of piety,"
occupied himself with the destruction of one custom
that recalled the times and the spirit of barbarism ;
namely, that of selling prisoners to captivity in
Turkey. And, in order that it should rest on the
conscience of his subjects, he made it the subject
of a synod that branded with anathema every one
who would not assent to the wishes of the king,
and obey him and the commandments of God.

176 History of the Georgian Church.
The fear of that sentence disturbed the conscience
of the Christians of Imereth, and this measure not
only did not remain fruitless, but even yielded
considerable advantages to the Church and to the
kingdom, by teaching the people to respect the
sacredness of the king's crown, and to cherish obe
dience to religion and to the laws of the land.
Solomon I., by reason of all the good he bestowed
on his orthodox kingdom, won for himself the
special title of Solomon the Great.
VI. But, for all that, the persecutions of the Church
did not become less. The Western Church, which
more than once attempted to destroy the orthodox
faith, continued, in those trying and troublous times,
to disturb the peace of the Georgian Church.
Already, from the year 1625, Roman missionaries
of the order of Theatine got a footing in Iberia ;
and the kings, as well as the people, finding among
them clever physicians and intelligent men, treated
them with kindness. The head of this mission,
Avitavolis,2 rejoiced, in 163 1, the Pope Urban VIII.

2 See Clement Galland Conciliat. de 1'EgI. Arme"n. avec
I'Eglise de Rome. He notices the letter of the king of

History of the Georgian Church. 177
with the report of the small results of his mission ;
to which may be ascribed the union of many
Armenians with the. Latin Church. After them
came monks of the \ Capucin order, who succeeded
in perverting not only many Armenians, but also
Georgians in Tiflis, in Guria, in Kitais, in Mingre
lia, and, above all, in Akhaltsikhe, still under the
power of the Turks, by promising them peace and
salvation in the bosom of the Roman Church.
At first the kings of Georgia did not feel
any diffidence towards these teachers from the
Western Church, but made use of them as of
learned men for the improvement of elementary
teaching in their dominions ; and the Catholicos
Antoni I., who found them useful instruments to
enlighten Georgia, fell himself a sacrifice to their
wiles. The king heard with grief of the intention
Georgia to the Pope Urban VIII., written in the year 1629,
together with the Pope's answer. Likewise the Pope's mis
sive to the Catholicos of Georgia, Zacharias (called " Metro
politan '" in the letter), and the Catholicos' reply. In the
missive to that Catholicos, given by Leo Allatius, lib. iii. de
contes. cap. 9, n. 1, Zacharias calls himself outright Catho
licos of all Georgia : " Qui suum universal hujus regionis,
pater magnus totius Gurgaslan Catholicus Zacharias," etc.
N

178 History of the Georgian Church.
of the Catholicos to abandon the orthodox faith.
He called together a Synod, and by its decision
Antoni had the choice given him of either quitting
Georgia or of abdicating his office of Catholicos.
Antoni left Georgia in 1755, placing himself under
the protection of the Holy Synod of all the Russias,
and submitted to the inquiry thereof his confession
of faith, which was found in every respect conform
able to the orthodox Greek faith; then, by permis
sion of the Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, the vacant
eparchy, rqr diocese, of Vladimirsk was given
him with the title of archbishop, which he filled
since the 27th November, 1759. In the course
of time- he was brought back to Georgia, and
reinstated into his office of Catholicos, when he
showed himself a zealous promoter of the orthodox
faith. VII. The king and the pastors of the Church,
having by these means sown the seeds of the errors
of the Western Church, afterwards did their utmost,
whether by rules of piety or by powerful refuta
tions, to maintain the integrity of the orthodox
faith and the purity of the Graco- Eastern Church.
Among these we may especially notice —

History of the Georgian Church. 179
(1) Zacharias (a.d, 161 7), Catholicos of Georgia,
who wrote a history of his times.
(2) The Catholicos Nicolai (A.D. 17 10), a native
of Imereth, who wrote an exposition of Holy Scrip
ture, and a history of the Church. For the sake
of his faith he endured the loss of his office
and exile, which he rendered yet more glorious by
his magnanimous endurance of the wrath of the
king. (3) Gideon, Archbishop of Ishkhnisk, who was
confirmed in his office by the Turkish Sultan.
(4) Gregorius, Archbishop of Mtzkhetha, who
took part in the compilation of the code of
Wakhtang. (5) Vissarion (A.D. 1724), Catholicos of Georgia,
historian, theologian, and singular for his know
ledge and rich endowments. He. wrote much in
refutation of Armenians and of Catholics ; sacred
songs in praise of saints celebrated in Georgia,
and for the festival of Our Saviour's Coat. Many
of these hymns were lost, and others are still sung
in the Church.
(6) Domentius III. (A.D. 1703), Catholicos, col
lected the accounts of the lives of the saints of the
N 2

180 History of the Georgian Church.
Greek Church. He also wrote descriptions of the
events of his time.
(7) Macrina (a.D. 1658), sister of King Thei
muraz I., wrote hymns in praise of the saints of
Georgia, which are still in use in the Church.
(8) Antoni (A.D. 1662), Archbishop of Tiflis,
mentioned by the Russian traveller Arsenius
Sukhanoff.3 (9) Joseph (A.D. 1702), Archbishop of Tiflis,
known by his spiritual writings and meditations.
Men of his time called him the Philosopher.
(10) Eudemon (A.D. 1662), Catholicos of Ap'h
khazia, framed canons known by the name of
Catholicos. (11) Arsenius of Nicotsminda (A.D. 1682), theo
logian and philosopher, wrote an exposition of
Holy Scripture. The purity of his thoughts, .his
simple conversation, and his saintly life won for
him the title of Arsenius the Angelic.
(12) Jacob I. of Imereth (a.D. 1712), visited the
holy places of Palestine. His writings are preserved
in manuscript in the monastery of Gaenat.

In his book Proskinitarii {irpoaKiivnrhpiov),

History of the Georgian Church. 181
(13) Michael (A.D. 1724), of the court of the
chief priest (Protoiereus), wrote books during the
reign of Wakhtang VI.
(14) Nicolai of Mrovelsk (A.D. 1742), bishop,
who came after the Archbishop of Tiflis, published
books for Divine service in Tiflis.
(15) Joseph (A.D. 1742), archbishop, known by
the name of Samebeli, corrected the Bible, and
prepared it for the press at Moscow, by order of
the Tzarevitch Bakar, in 1743.
(16) Gregorius (a.d. 1737), Hieromonachos, of
the princely race of Vakhvakhof, wrote a narrative
of the martyrdom of Queen Ketevan. He also
wrote in praise of her hymns, which to this day are
sung in the Church.
(17) Johan of Tchkhatyr (A.D. 1698), of Guria,
a monk, wrote in verse ¦ the history and the praises
of saints, and a history of Christianity in Kobyleta,
or Western Guria.
(18) Joseph (A.D. 1779), Catholicos of Imereth,
brother of King Solomon I.
(19) Cosma (A.D. 1672), Hieromonachos, wrote
in praise of Queen Ketevan.
(20) Job (A.D. 1691), Archimandrite of Bpita-

1 82 History of the Georgian Church.
reth, learned in the Scriptures and preacher, wrote
hymns in praise of martyrs.
(21) Timotheus (a.D. 1755), Archbishop of Tiflis,
travelled in 1755 to Constantinople, to Mt. Athos,
and to Palestine. The only part of his writings
known at present is his travels to the holy places.
(22) lesse (a.D. 1640), Archbishop of Tiflis.
(23) Dositheus (A.D. 1671), Bishop of Necres,
and philosopher.
(24) Savva (A.D. 1759), Bishop of Ninotsmindsk,
godfather to the last king of Georgia, George the
XHIth. (25) Zacharias Protoiereus (A.D. 1762), of the
family of Gabaev.
(26) Athanasius (A.D. 1772), archbishop, printed
Divine service books at Moscow.

History of tJie Georgian Church. 183

CHAPTER XII.
Return of the Catholicos Antoni I. into Georgia, and his
exertions in behalf of the orthodox Church — Archbishop
Gaius — The writer Savva Orbelian — Deeds of King
Solomon II. in Imereth — Holy men of that time — The
Catholicos of Georgia becomes ex officio member of
the Holy Synod of all the Russias — Last and greatest
trials of the Church of Georgia — Sack of Tiflis by the
Persians in 1795 — King George the XHIth.
| HE Catholicos Antoni I. (A.D. 1762),
once returned from Russia to his chair
in Georgia, set to work to confirm
the orthodox faith, by putting forth and ex
posing in many writings the faith of the Graeco-
Eastern Church, and by contributing to the
enlightenment of the country. Out of love for
science,1 though without the knowledge of lan-
1 The writings of the Catholicos Antoni I. and his most
remarkable translations are the following : —

184 History of tlie Georgian Church,
guages, but with the assistance of others, he suc
ceeded in translating many excellent books that
tended to the real enlightenment of the people.
1. Theology, divided into four parts — -'Dogmatic, Prac
tical, Mystic, and Polemic.
2. Martyrologue, or narrative in words of praise of nine
teen saints of Georgia and of a few from Greece.
3. A Ready Answer, or a refutation of the error of the
Latin, Lutheran, and Armenian Churches.
4. Translation of S. Paul's Epistle to the Romans.
5. Translation of the fifty-first Psalm.
6. The Spiritual Sling, written by Pitirimus, Bishop of
Nijegorod in 1727.
7. A Prologue, or a Synaxarion arranged for every day in
the year, written in Iambic verses ; the first four months
thereof belong to Johannes Petricius, the second to Arsenius,
and the third to Antoni.
8. Praises of all the Saints of Georgia, in verse.
9. History of the CEcumenic Council of Ephesus, and the
exposition of the rules of that Council.
10. The Rock of Faith of Stephen Yavorski, translated
from the Russian.
11. The Dialectic, Topic and Categories of Aristotle,
translated from the Armenian.
12. The Philosophy of Baumeister, in four parts, and his
Definitivum, with original notes and explanations of the
most obscure or of the most remarkable passages.
13. Quintus Curtius' History of Alexander the Great.
14. The Rhetoric of Mekhitar, from the Armenian.
15. A Georgian Grammar, &c.

History of the Georgian Church. 185
He also made proof of this same love of knowledge,
in his efforts to collect ancient books scattered
about in Georgia, so as to save them from the
wear and tear of time, for the benefit of posterity #
At that time monks and the clergy in general
were the instructors of the sons of the Church in
true wisdom ; and monasteries were the abodes of
science and of libraries. There were all the
nobility taught ; and from thence came forth
pastors of the Church and instructors of the
people. Then, as heretofore, theology was the chief
of all sciences.
II. After Antoni, we may mention Gaius, who
was afterwards Archbishop of Astrakhan, as having
rendered service to the Church by his writings
and by his teaching of youth. Owing to his
having been for a short time rector of the Seminary
of Telab in Kakheth, he formed many men, who
afterwards did service both to the Church and to
the country. The fruits of his labours, however,
exist only in manuscript.2
2 The works of Archbishop Gaius are the following : —
1. Ecclesiastical History, translated from the Russian.
2. Spiritual Regulations of Peter the Great.

1 86 History of the Georgian Church.
At that time appeared the writings of Prince
Sulkhan Savva Orbelian, first lexicographer of
Georgia, who wrote in the year 1761. His works,
in which he endeavoured to show the heterodoxy
of the Graeco-Eastern Church, are known under the
name of " The Gate of Paradise." After taking the
order of monk in Georgia, he departed from the
orthodox faith, by receiving at Rome the Roman
Catholic confession of faith, at the instigation and
under the protection of Pope Clement XL Antoni I.

3. The Divinity of his Eminence Plato, Metropolitan of
Moscow. 4. Moral Treatises of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius.
5. Royal Instruction of the Deacon Agapitus of Constan
tinople — how to reign — -written to the Emperor Justinian.
6. Dictionary of all the remarkable cities of Europe.
7. Moral Treatise of Kitais.
8. Ancient History by Rollin.
9. Translation of the Proverbs of Solomon.
10. Letters of Basile the Great.
11. A Georgian Grammar, printed in the town of Kre-
mentsuga, in the government of Poltava.
12. Stories out of the History of Georgia.
13. Touching the Faith, in Questions and Answers.
14. Speeches delivered in the Seminary of Telav, of which
he was Rector under King Heraclius II.
15. Sermons for certain days, &c.

History of the Georgian Church. 187
opposed himself so strongly to this perversion, that,
despite the extensive knowledge, acquirements, and
reputation of Orbelian, neither his writings nor
his example had any dangerous influence over the
orthodox Christians of Georgia.
III. Then was the Church of Imereth and of
Mingrelia governed by an independent Catholicos.
After the peace with the Turks made by the
Russians in 1774, that Church could not be safe
from the wistful looks of the Pashas of Anatolia,
who saw hidden under her, a great and powerful
support of the Russian throne. Moreover, King
Solomon II. (A.D. 1793 — 181 1), brought up in
Tiflis, having ascended the throne of Imereth,
turned his attention to the morals of his subjects ;
and, for the close union of his kingdom with that of
Mingrelia, he contracted an alliance by marriage
with one of its most powerful princes, by taking to
himself to wife the Princess Maria Katsievna ;3 he
brought a printing-office into Kitais, where was
printed a remarkable number of books for the ser
vice of the Church ;4 he opened schools ; and, being
1 He died at S. Petersburg on the 19th March, 1841.
4 At that time were printed the following books : — The

1 88 History of the Georgian Church.
in the straitest bond of union with all the provinces
of Imereth, he gave peaceful days to the Church.
Imereth, Mingrelia, and Georgia had a sufficient
number of learned men for their spiritual enlighten
ment; among them the Archbishop Antoni of
Tchkondiv descended from the great princes of
Dadian,5 confirmed by his words the orthodox
faith throughout Imereth. Nevertheless, neither
could the safe establishment of the kingdom nor
the prosperity of the Church be settled and com
pleted without the help of the Russian people.
IV. The great number of monasteries and of
hermitages in Imereth contributed to the peaceful
results of true Christianity, and served as pillars on
which the Church rested, while persecuted on all
sides by the Turks. During this time of persecution
and of anguish to all, the Church of Imereth saw and
honoured many defenders of the Faith who occupied

Gospels, the Acts and Epistles, the Breviary, the Psalter
and the Service-Book.
0 Of his writings there remain : — Sundry Discourses for
Solemn Feast-Days, Records of the Events of his Time,
and a List of the Diocesan Archpriests (apx'«p«r) of Imereth,
of Guria, and of Mingrelia,

History of the Georgian Church, 189
the Episcopal Chair, in her rugged mountains and
in many of her desert places. Among them shine
most brightly John, Bishop of Manglia, a worker
of miracles, celebrated, even in Russia, for his sainted
life, and now honoured by God himself through all
his miracles in Tiflis, where his bones rest in the
Synod Cathedral of Sion ; Nicolai, Catholicos of
Imereth; Zenon, Bishop of Necres; Theodorus, Arch
bishop of Mtzkhetha ; Germanus, Metropolitan of
Tiflis ; Gennadius, Anchorite in the desert of John
the Baptist ; Zenon, Archbishop of Alaberd ; Victor,
Bishop of Khartshashni ; Serapion, champion of the
desert of Davido-Garedj. Many others, glorious for
their struggles for the Faith, for their solitary life,
and for their martyrdom, whether from the omission I
of historians, or from their own silence, are known '
of Heaven alone.
V. Georgia, having received the protection of Rus
sia, in 1783, during the reign of the Georgian king,
Heraclius II., underwent little alteration in her
ecclesiastical hierarchy. This alteration consisted
only in the Catholicos, who, by the arrangement of
the Holy Synod of all the Russias, could no longer
exercise his former independent office. It stands

190 History of the Georgian Church.
to reason that such a change brought no real altera
tion in the faith ; but the Georgian Church, by
being in union with that of Russia, found for herself
both a stay and unity of thought, as well in doctrine
as in rites and ceremonies. By this change the
Catholicos Antoni II., son of King Heraclius, was
honoured with a seat in the Holy Synod, without,
for all that, losing the title of Catholicos of Mtz
khetha and of all Georgia — a title which continued
attached to that dignity and in Georgia until the
year 181 1.
VI. The last and most heavy trial of the Church
of Iberia was the irruption of Mahomed-Khan intp
the weakened state of Georgia, in the year 1795. '
In the month of September of that year the Per
sian army took the city of Tiflis, seized almost all
the valuable property of the royal house, and reduced
the palace and the whole of the city into a heap of
ashes and of ruins. The whole of Georgia, thus left
at the mercy of the ruthless enemies of the name
of Christ, witnessed the profanation of everything
holy, and the most abominable deeds and practices
carried on in the temples of God. Neither youth nor
old age could bring those cruel persecutors to pity ;

History of the Georgian Church. 19 1
the churches were filled with troops of murderers
and children were killed at their mothers' breasts.
They took the Archbishop of Tiflis, Dositheus, who
had not come out of the Synod of Sion, made him
kneel down before an image of the B. V Mary, and,
without mercy on his old age, threw him from a
balcony into the river Kur ; then they plundered
his house, and set fire to it. The pastors of the
Church, unable to hide the treasures and other valu
able property of the Church, fell a sacrifice to the
ferocity of their foes. Many images of saints re
nowned in those days perished for ever ; as, for
instance, among others, the image of the B. Virgin
of the Church of Metekh, and that of the Synod
of Sion. The enemy, having rifled churches,
destroyed images, and profaned the tombs of
saints, revelled in the blood of Christians ; and the
inhuman Mahomed-Khan put an end to these
horrors only when there remained not a living soul
in Tiflis.
VII. King George XIII., who ascended the throne
of Georgia (A.D. 1797 — 1800) only to see his subjects
overwhelmed and rendered powerless by their in
cessant and hopeless struggles with unavoidable

192 History of the Georgian Church.
dangers from enemies of the faith and of the people,
found the resources of the kingdom exhausted
by the -constant armaments necessary for its own
protection; before his eyes lay the ruins of the city,
villages plundered and laid waste, churches, mon
asteries, and hermitages demolished, troubles within
the family, and without it the sword, fire, and in
evitable ruin, not only of the Church, but also of
the people, yea, even of the very name of the people.
In the fear of God, and trusting to His providence,
he made over orthodox Georgia in a decided man
ner to the Tzar of Russia, his co-religionist; and
thus obtained for her peace and quiet. It pleased
God, through this king, to heal the deep wounds of
an orthodox kingdom.
Feeling that his end was drawing near, he, with
the consent of all ranks and of the people, requested
the Emperor Paul I. to take Georgia into his subjec
tion for ever (A.D. 1800). The Emperor Alexander I.
when he mounted the throne, promised to protect
the Georgian people of the same faith with himself
which had thus given itself over unreservedly and
frankly to the protection of Russia. In his mani
festo to the people of Georgia (A.D. 1801) he pro-

History of the Georgian Church. 193
claimed the following: — "One and the same dignity >
one and the same honour, and humanity lay upon
us the sacred duty, after hearing the prayers of
sufferers, to grant them justice and equity in ex
change for their affliction, security for their persons
and for their property, and to give to all alike the
protection of the law."
Thus were the last wishes of the king fulfilled —
to abide with heart and soul by a Tzar of the same
Faith, who on that occasion distinguished himself
by a more than human wisdom. Posterity will
value the boon granted by that sovereign.

194 History of the Georgian Church.

ON THE HIERARCHY OF THE
GEORGIAN CHURCH.
jEITHER the Georgian annals, which
for a long time past have been fol
lowed by writers, nor the records found
at the present day in monasteries, give in full
the course of the Georgian hierarchy, nor the in
troduction of Christianity into Georgia, either at
first or in after-time. Neither do Greek authors
make mention of Eustathius of Antioch, as we al
ready remarked in Chap. I. It is in the history
of the country, and in charters of the Georgian
monastery on Mt. Athos in Greece, that we find
first mention made by name of S. Nina, the illumi-
natress of Georgia, and of the Archbishop Eus-

History of the Georgian Church. 195
tathius of Antioch, patriarch, sent by the Emperor
Constantine at the request of King Mirian. But
as temples and Christians increased in number, so
also did an increase of bishops and of priests
follow as a matter of course. From history, too,
it is evident that' for this purpose Greeks were for
a long time appointed bishops, as we see clearly
from their succession after Eustathius of Antioch.
Their rights and rule extended, according to the
spirit of those times, not only over the churches,
but also over civil matters. This was done, how
ever, not so much in order that the archbishops
should strive ardently for worldly distinction in an
ambitious spirit, as that the kings themselves,
little instructed in the faith, wished that the
bishops and the archbishops should share in the civil
government for the good of the people, thoroughly
devoted to Christianity. Then, undoubtedly, it
may be owing to the respect paid to the Patriarch
Eustathius, to whom belongs the glory of establish
ing that Church, and of consecrating her archbishop,
that the Georgian Church from the first was de
pendent on the Patriarch of Constantinople, and,
therefore, soon united to the chair of Antioch.
0 2

196 History of the Georgian Church.
Whether or not she from the first appointed in
dependent archbishops, or avTO/ce<paXovs, of whom
there were many at the beginning of the fifth
century, does not appear from history ; only Bal-
samon, in his history of Constantinople,1 mentions
Iberia as an avTO/cefyaXos, independent Church.
Meanwhile we find from the history of Georgia
that, during the reign of Wakhtang Gorhaslan, and
by his will, the Archbishop of Iberia took the name
of Catholicos ; and with that title were henceforth
also given to the Archbishop of Iberia all the rights
of independence (avTOKe^aXov).2 Procopius writes3
1 Nilus Doxapatrius in notitia suae Grascas Iberiam prisca
aetate Amasaas Helenoponti metropoli obnoxiam fuisse
ponit. Oriens Christ, torn. i. p. 1335.
5 Rule vi. cap. 2 : — •" Si alias etiam ecclesias inveneris, qua?
principales et per se sint capita, ut Bulgariam, Cyprum,
Iberiam, ne mireris." The patriarchs of the Eastern orthodox
Church always made use of the following titles in their
missives to the Archbishop of Iberia : " Most happy (or
glorious) primitive {aiTOKe<pa\os) Archbishop of the whole
land of Iberia ;" " In the Holy Ghost beloved brother of (our
humility) us his servants ;'' and at the end : " Health from the
Lord, Most Reverend Father (or Master), beloved Brother,
and Fellow-servant." — Descript. of the four Qicum. Patri
archates, S. Petersb., 1784, p. 15.
3 De. Bell. Pers. lib. ii.- cap. 25.

History of the Georgian Church. 197
that in his time, both in Georgia and in Perso-
Armenia, the heads of the clergy were called
Catholicos. On the other hand, such a separation
of the Georgian Church from the Greek Patriar
chates was, it appears, the result of the difficulty of
relations with Antioch, and not without the consent
of the Patriarch of Antioch. The Church of Iberia,
on a par with the Church of Cyprus, and with that
of Bulgaria, as to rights, although dependent on
her own Catholicos as regards her inward rule and
government, in her outward construction never
swerved from the orthodox faith and from union
with the Eastern Greek Church, except in one
ceremony of the Armenian Church — not to mix
luke-warm water with the consecrated elements, as
is commonly done in the Georgian Church ; but
this was altered by the decrees of the second
Council of Constantinople.4 Likewise the custom of

4 Ac Iberi quidem aquam in sanctum calicem non injiciunt,
licet sint alioqui in primis orthodoxi, et Synodice aliquando
interrogati quomodo hoc faciunt, dixerunt, nunquam ullum
Iberum aqua calida usum esse ad vini potionem, ex longa
regionis consuetudine : et propterea eos ne ferventi quidam
aqua uti ad sacramenta. Mysterii autem facultatem edocti,

198 History of the Georgian Church.
giving Georgian daughters in marriage to Maho
medans, the result of the times, and not of endurance
of Mahomedanism, or of the fear and helplessness
of the Georgians under the yoke of their Maho
medan rulers, also drew the attention of the
Greek Church, and a well-merited rebuke from her.5
citra ullam recusationem persuasi sunt ferventem in sanctas
participationis tempore injicere. — Canon SS. Apost.Theodor.
Balsam., p. 306. — This rite may have been first introduced at
the time of Cyrus (A.D. 630), Bishop of the Eparchy of
Phazida, who received from the Emperor Heraclius the chair
of Patriarch of Alexandria, taught the heresy of the Mono-
thelytes, was opposed in his teaching by Sophronius, Patri
arch of Jerusalem, and condemned by the Sixth CEcumenic
Council. 5 Ego autem qui scio esse orthodoxos Iberos, et nostra
omnia suscepisse et videam ipsos filios Agarenis nuptum
dare, miror et nescio, quomodo a suis sacerdotibus, qui
legunt et sciunt decreta canonum haec noc prohibentur.
Haec ego corrigi cupio potentissimi et sanctissimi nostri Im-
peratoris auxilio. — Constitutio xviii. tituli quinti lib. i. Balsam.
ed. 1630, Paris, p. 179. — Nota ergo praesentem . canonem
propter Iberos, qui suas filias Agarenis indiscriminatim in
matrimonio collocant. — Ibid. p. 449.
King Wakhtang VI., legislator of Georgia, resting on this
ancient institution of the Church, and on the thirty-first
Canon of the Council of Laodicea, that forbids marriages of
orthodox persons with heretics or with infidels, gave rules for
similar occasions. These rules are found in his code, divis. of

History of the Georgian Church 199
Georgian Christians shared their meat and drink
With heretics, with Mahomedans, and even with
heathens ; but they showed how truly impossible
it is to hold close intercourse with even neighbours
who are heretics — as, for instance, with the Arme
nians, of whom many were subjects of Georgia;
with Mahomedans6 — as, for instance, with the
Persians and with the Turks, at times lords over
them, at others their subjects ; with heathens — as,
for instance, with the mountain tribes subject to
them ; and with such others whose friendship, by
reason of their number, was an advantage to the
Church of Georgia.
We find, then, from history that not only did the
Greek laws, § 73 or 74. And in § 75 we read, respecting matri*
monial alienees with Jews and with Mahomedans : "Christians
must not give their daughters to Jews and to Tartars, neither
let their sons marry the daughters of them. Whoever does
so exposes himself to a righteous punishment, and receives
his portion with the Devil and with the Jew."
6 VII. Can. of the Council of Ancyra, Balsam. — Nota haec
. . . adversus eos, qui una cum Saracenis comedunt vel cum
aliis gentilibus ; Iberes autem nihil referre dicunt an cum
orthodoxis, an cum haereticis comedatur ; et quomodo hoc
fiat nescio. — Synodicon, sive Pandects canonum SS. Apostol.
torn. ii. p. 116. (Oxonii, 1672.)

200 History of the Georgian Church.
Georgian Church not come out from the Greek
Church, but that she quarrelled with the churches
which severed themselves from her. Moreover, in
the troublous times of the Greek Church caused
by the Iconoclasts, the Georgians piously adhered
to the primitive teaching of the Church, as to the
respect paid to images; and the Catholicos of
Georgia consecrated in Mtzkhetha John, bishop
of the Goths.7 The final and common judgment
of the Church, centered in the person of the
Catholicos, could not otherwise have been com
plete and decisive without the consent to it of
the Greek Patriarch in Constantinople, as it is
evident from the example in the person of the
Catholicos Michael, who was sent for judgment to
Constantinople. Kings, albeit they sallied forth

7 In vita S. Johannis Gothiaa Episcopi, qui sasculo ecclesiae
octavo claruit ipse legitur non Constantinopolim, de prisco more
sed in Iberiam potius ad gentis hujus Catholicum perrexisse,
a quo consecraretur, quia per omne Byzantinum Imperium
Iconomachorum hasresis grassabatur, a qua proinde Iberia
immunis sarta tectaque manserat. — Oriens Christ, torn. i.
P- 1333- — We find the same thing stated in the Synaxarion for
the ist of October, noticed in the Georgian Ritual and else
where.

History of the Georgian Church. 20 1
to do the work of the Church by arming themselves
with power and with strength against heretics, and
against books injurious to the Church, yet did
this only for the confirmation of the Faith, and of
ecclesiastical regulations, as we see from the
examples of Queen Tamar, and of King David the
Reformer. Colchis, the present Mingrelia, was dependent on
the head of the Church of Iberia ever since the
days of the Greek Emperor Justinian. In those
days the Greeks, for the furtherance of their com
merce along the Black Sea with Asia through
Karthalinia, and for the support of Christianity in
the towns built by them, established here and there
a few clergy and bishops, who were everywhere de
pendent on Greek hierarchs, as also the Colchians,
who were then under the rule of Greek emperors.
All those churches were reckoned to the Eparchy
of Asia Minor.8 Stratophile, one of the bishops of
the town of Pitiunta, was present at the first CEcu
menic council of Nicaea. And at the sixth CEcumenic

8 Josephi Binghami Angli origines seu antiq. Eccles. Lib.
1 8, c. iii. § 1 8.

202 History of the Georgian Church.
council of Constantinople9 were present the Bishops
Theodorus and John, of the towns of Colchis,
Petia, and Phazida. On the other hand, since
the kings of Iberia never yielded to the Greeks the
ancient dignity of their kingdom and of their
subjects, then were both Colchis and Trapezus
itself reckoned at times to the Catholicos of Iberia,
and at others they found themselves independent
of them, considering themselves as it were an in
dependent church (avroKe(pa\o'i). Thus the town
of Sebastopolis was of the Autokephalia of Ap'h
khazia,10 Phazida a province of the Lazes,11 and
Trapezus of the province of Pontus. From the
records of the Emperor Leo, it is evident that the
Bishop of Colchis was dependent on the Metropo
litan of Trapezus.12 But the Georgian Kodin men
tions Ap'hkhazia and Sebastopolis as Autokephalia
9 Binii Sever. Concilia Gener. et Provinc. torn. i. p.
342. Among the names of the Bishops who signed the Acts
of the Synods, we find Favst (Faustinus), Bishop of the
Gygani. 10 See Catal. Provinc. et Metrol. in noticia edita per
Bevergium et Goar.
11 Leunclavium et Bevergium.
12 Johannis Leunclavii Pandect. Hist. Turcic.

History of the Georgian Church.

203

of the Patriarchate of Antioch.13 On the other
hand, he places the towns of Phazidis and Rhodo-
polis, and others, in the Eparchy of the Lazes.1*
All the rest of Kakheth, of Somkheth, where is
now the town of Manglis, and the churches of the
Caucasus, were straitly united to the Church of
Karthalinia under one head, the Archbishop or
Catholicos of Mtzkhetha.
Historians give us the names of the Catholicos of
Georgia in the following order: —

ARCHBISHOPS.

A.D.

A.D.
1. John I.
318
6. John II.
2. James .
364
7. George .
3. Job
379
8. Basile
4. Elias .
405
9. Mobidag .
434
5. Simeon
408
10. Michael
446
CATHOLICOS.
A.D.
A.D.
11. Peter.
457
41. Michael II. .
1396
12. Samuel I.
499
42. David I. .
1407
13. Tavbetchag .
S4i
43. Elioz II.
14. Tchigirman
¦ 542
44. Theodore
13 Codin. in notit Graec. Episcop.
14 Ibid.
204 History of the Georgian Church.

A.D.

A.D.

15. Savva .

• 555

45-

Shio .

1430

16. Eulabius .

560

46.

David II. .

1462

17. Macarius

572

47-

Nicolai IV.

18. Simeon I. .
581
48.
Abraham II.
1494
19. Samuel II.
589
49.
Basile II.
20. Simeon II.
600
50.
Dorotheus II.
1522
21. Bartholomew .
603
5i-
Melchizedek .
1525
22. John I.
620
52.
Germanus .
1532
23. Vavil .
629
53-
Nicolai V.
1548
24. Thabor
663
54-
Domentius I.
1559
25. John II.
7i7
55-
Malachi
1580
26. John III. .
1089
56.
Zacharias .
I603
27. Nicolai I.
1 1 50
57-
Eudemon I. .
1634
28. Michael I. .
1 160
58.
Christophore
l642
29. Theodosius
1 169
59-
Domentius II.
l660
30. John IV. .
1171
60.
Nicolai VI.
I67S
31. Theodosius
1202
61.
John V.
1688
32. Nicolai II.
1209
62.
Eudemon II.
1704
33. Euthymius I. .
1216
63-
Domentius II.
1705
34. Nicolai III.
1240
64.
Vissarion .
1724
35. Abraham I.
1270
65.
Nicolai VII. .
I 741
36. Euthymius II.
1301
66.
Antoni I. .
1744
37. Basile I.
1345
67.
Joseph
1756
38. Dorotheus I.
1357
68.
Again, Antonius I
1765
39. George
1375
69.
Antoni 1 1.1" .
1788
40. Elioz I.
1391
15 It is clear from sundry books on ecclesiastical matters
that there were several Catholicos non-mentioned in history,
such were Clement, who lived in the ixth century ; Malachia,
(Malacenum), cotemporary of Pope Benedict IV. (a.D. 900 —
History of the Georgian Church. 205
When the division of Georgia into two kingdoms
took place, there appeared two Catholicos, one of
which was named Catholicos of Karthalinia, of
Kakheth, and of Tiflis, and lived in the capital of
Mtzkhetha, and the other lived in Bitchvinta
(Pytius), but afterwards in the town of Imereth
Kitais, with the title of Catholicos of Ap'hkhazia and
of Imereth.
Of the Catholicos of Ap'hkhazia and of Imereth
are known the following : — ¦

I.

Arsenius (about)

• 139°

10.

Simeon, died in

1666

2.

John

• H72

11.

Eudemon II. .

3-

Malachi

• 1533

12.

David

1680

4-

Eudemon I.

. 1582

13-

Gregory II.

1731

5-

Euthymius

14.

Germanus .

1742

6.

Malachi 11.

. 1628

15-

Nicolai

7-

Maximus I.

16.
Joseph
1779
8.
Gregory I.
. 1631
17-
Maximus II. .
9-
Zacharias
. 1658
903) ; Kyrion, known by his disputes with the Armenians,
who lived in the vth century (see note 53) ; Elias, who lived
in the xith century, between 1089 and 11 50, and restored a
monastery in Tiflis, as we find from inscriptions on stones ;
Arsenius in the xith century ; Cyril, Archbishop of Mtz
khetha (in Samtavra), occupant of the chair of Catholicos at
the end of the xviith century. The years of accession of every
2q6 History of the Georgian Church.
After the death of the last Catholicos of Imereth,
Maximus II., who died in the convent of Retchersk
in Kief, in the year 1796 (30th of May), the two
churches joined by outward bonds of union, yet at
times separated from each other by different con
fessions of faith, were governed by the one Catho
licos of Georgia.
The badge which in ancient times distinguished
a Catholicos from other bishops was: — (1) Two
seraphims made of strung pearls and other precious
stones, and sewn on the skirts of the black cape ;
(2) a cross in frdnt thereof; (3) a black velvet
cloak with silver streamlets; (4) a mitre with a
cross on the top, and edged all round with a fretted
crown ;. (5) and, while officiating, two panaghias
with a cross. Above these, the Emperor Paul I., of
blessed memory, bestowed on Antoni. II. a white
cape with seraphims.
When the last Catholicos Antoni16 was discharged

Catholicos to the Church government, necessary for a critical
history of the same, are stated in a MS. found in my collec
tion of Georgian MSS. No. 167.
16 The Catholicos Antoni II. died at Nijni Novgorod, on
the 2 1 st of November 1828, aged sixty-eight.

History of the Georgian Church, 207
from the government of spiritual matters in Georgia,
on the 10th of July, 171 1, the office of Catholicos
ceased altogether. Instead of it, the head of the
Georgian clergy was allowed, by the supreme will
of the Emperor, to take the name of Metropolitan of
Mtzkhetha and of Karthalinia, and for ever to appro
priate to himself the title of " Member of the Synod,
and Exarch of Georgia." And to that dignity was
the Georgian Archbishop Balaam then raised by
the Emperor's good pleasure. The Emperor
attached to him a court for the regulation of
matters referring to the Georgian Church only ; for
the Church of Imereth was then under the govern
ment of archpriests of those parts. On the 30th of
August, 1 8 14, the exarchate of Imereth was given
by the Emperor . to the Georgian exarch Balaam,
and instead of the court then sitting in Tiflis, a
board of management of the holy synod of Georgia
and of Imereth, under the immediate supervision
of the synod, was organized, and presided over
by the exarch. In December 1818, and at the
representation of the synod, which the Emperor
confirmed, one exarchy alone was established in
Georgia with the title of Eparchy of Karthalinia and

208 History of the Georgian Church
of Kakheth ; whence the Exarch of Georgia is at
present called Exarch of Karthalinia and of Kakheth.
Together with the establishment of the exarchate
in Georgia, or from i8ir, the Exarchs have been :
I. The Metropolitan Balaam, of the princely
race of Georgian Eristhavs, who died in 1830 at
Moscow. 2. The Metropolitan Theophilact, who died at
Georgia, July 19, 1821.
3. The Metropolitan Jonas, who is now (1842) at
St. Petersburg, attending the Holy Synod of
Government. 4. The Archbishop Moses, who died in Tiflis,
July 13, 1834.
5. The Archbishop Eugenius, who now (1842)
governs the Exarchate of Georgia.

THE END. -^fCS ¦

WILLIAM STEVENS, FBIITTEB, tft BELL TABD, TEMPLE BAB.