Two most critical periods of the 2000-year-old history of the Apostolic Church of Georgia are to be attributed to the 19th- 20th centuries. They were the abolition of its autocephaly by the Russian royal court and its restoration, gained by the striving of the Georgian nation and clergy. Plethora of publications speaks about the deplorable circumstances in which the Church of Georgia had to continue life in the 19th century. After the Apostles had established her and had preached to the people, Christianity became the Georgians' national religion and remained as such throughout centuries.

Starting from the year 1811, this Church, the stronghold of Christianity for the entire Caucasus, was transformed into an additional part of the Russian bureaucracy. Before Russia's presence in Georgia, the Church had been an owner of immense property. She had been an economically independent institution by which she was profoundly different from the Russian Church. The latter had been modified into part of the state by Russian political authorities and since 1722 had been ruled by an attorney-general who was head of the Synod. He was a lay statesman and a wide scope of rights was vested in his hands. Peter the Great had abolished the Patriarchal guidance of the Church and had initiated her subordination to lay authorities; the process was accomplished by Queen Katherine II. Under these circumstances Russia would not admit the economical independence of the Georgian Church or her solid influence on the lay authorities. This purpose directed her to the reorganization of the Church of Georgia.

On March 3rd, 1810 Catholicos Anton II was almost induced to leave Georgia and depart to Russia. On July 30th, 1811 a dicastery was formed; the Church of Georgia was deprived of her autocephaly. Varlam Eristavi was appointed head of the dicastery and the title of ?exarch? was conferred on him. Most difficult times started in the life of Georgia as the Russian authorities commenced on restricting eparchies. It was not a newly begun business and was aimed at dismissing those personalities from around the Cathedral who were unacceptable for the Russian authorities.

On August 30th, 1815 the dicastery was transformed into the ?department of Synod of Georgia-Imereti? to which the Russian government subordinated the churches of Guria and Samegrelo also.

Varlam Eristavi was called to Russia in 1817. In the same year, Archbishop Theophilactos Rusanov from Ryazan was appointed exarch and was sent to Georgia. Since then the Church was only ruled by Russian bishops. In 1819 Theophilactos united the bishoprics of Imereti by means of restricting them in number. Guria and Samegrelo were allowed to have one diocese each. Out of twelve eparchies, only three were maintained in West Georgia. Along with it, the exarch reduced the number of churches.

The Russian governing authorities saw the Church of Georgia as another source of income. They considered it profitable to reduce the number of clergy and to cut the overall expenditure since it would help increase the income in the exchequer.

Russia's policy raised anger in the Georgian people and a rebellion for the defense of the Mother Church started in 1818. The rebels fought under the slogan ?The Liberation of the Motherland?. Every social layer of people was involved in the fight against the regiments and detachments, well armed with artillery.

In 1820 Metropolitan Dositheos of Kutaisi, Metropolitan Ekvtime of Gelati and other prominent people were arrested. This arrest enhanced the vigor of the struggle.

Metropolitan Dositheos of Kutaisi (Tsereteli) was an old man. He was put in a sack and taken in the direction of Russia but in the vicinity of the town of Gory was beaten to death in the same sack. Metropolitan Ekvtime of Gelati (Shervashidze) was arrested as one of the leaders of the revolt.

Metropolitans and bishops, in general, had been inviolable and even respected by the Muslims. The Russians' actions aroused a fierce anger in the rebels and at the end of ferocious battles the Russian army gained a Pyrrhic victory. The region of Racha was burnt and devastated, the fortress of Shemokmedi in Guria was razed to the ground, villages were burnt, rebels were hung; many of them sustained the forfeiture of property and were exiled to Russia their possessions being taken over by the exchequer.

On May 21st 1820, 2000 Georgian warriors laid their lives for the faith and freedom. Among them were priests, monks and other members of the clergy.

The Church of Georgia had had tens of bishoprics and eparchies in East, West and South Georgia. With their abolition, the Christian faith decreased among the people. The clergymen unceasingly demanded the restoration of the abolished eparchies.

The exarch's policy impaired the image of the Church of Georgia and brought about indifference towards the faith among the parish. Particularly outrageous was the restriction of the Georgian language in churches and at schools. Georgian theological schools were closed and Russian ones were opened. This resulted in the lack of knowledge among new clergymen. Abandoning the Georgian language, part of the youth plunged in the Russian and the European ideas of socialism, atheism and anarchy.

The Church possessions of valuable gold and silver objects, embellished with precious stones and preserved for many centuries, were lost. The exchequer took possession of the lands of the Church.

It is no surprise that under such circumstances the Georgian clergymen took an active part in the rebellions of the years 1804 and 1812 and the others of the following period which aimed at the liberation of Georgia. One of the leaders of the resistance in the revolt of 1832 was Archimandrite Philadelphos Kiknadze.

Under Exarch Paul Lebedyev, in 1826 one of the expelled students Joseph Laghiashvili killed the Rector of the seminary Archpriest Chudetski. At his funeral, the exarch pronounced a eulogy which contained a curse of the people whom the student belonged to. The statesman Dimitri Kipiani expressed the irate Georgians' attitude towards it. He addressed to the exarch with a suggestion that if the curse which had been spread among the people was true, ?the curser was to depart from the accursed land?. Dimitri Kipiani was punished for these words by being exiled where later in 1887 he was killed.

The best sons of the Russian people raised their voice against the oppression of the Georgian Church. One of such defenders was the well-known scholar Slavophil Nicholai Durnov. He described the deplorable conditions of the Church of Georgia in his assay ?The Fate of the Church of Georgia?.

Regrettably, in the 19th century, while Georgia was part of the Russian Empire, the fervent faith of the nation weakened. In the 20th century, the disintegration of the empire started and the same process also gained ground in the life of the Church. The sustenance of the empire required the alteration of its society. A population of one religion, speaking one language and devoted to the country, would save it. Thus the primary issue on the agenda was the assimilation of the Georgian people as well as of the other peoples by making them mingle with the Russians. The Georgian language was severely persecuted. The exarch's strife was targeted at the subjection of the parish to the Russian way of life. But, the Georgians rendered a relevant answer to his policy.

In 1908 Exarch Nikon was killed. The Russian hierarchs called Georgia ?wild and ruthless land? and the newly appointed would shun coming here.

The Georgian Church Fathers and the best sons of the nation saw their path leading to the deliverance of the faith as the one which lay through striving for the independence of the Church of Georgia from the Russian Empire, in other words - through the restoration of her autocephaly.

The proposal for restoration was strongly supported by the Georgian statesmen: St. Ilia the Righteous (Chavchavadze), St. Ekvtime the Man of God (Takaishvili), Alexander Tsagareli, Alexander Khakhanashvili, Nicholas Marr and others. Two Russian scholars, Solovjov and Zaozersky also advocated the cause.

After the assassination of Ilia the Righteous and the rise of regressive forces in the country, the adherents of autocephaly turned to the inculcation of their ideas in people by publishing books for they considered the independence of the Church would be the foundation for Georgia's future independence. On March 12th 1977, tens of thousands of faithful people assembled at the Holy Liturgy in Mtskheta. Bishop Leonid (Okropiridze) briefly interrupted the liturgy and made a speech in which the autocephaly of the Georgian Church was declared restored. In the same year, on September 17th Bishop Kirion (Sadzaglishvili) was elected Catholicos-Patriarch of the Georgian Church. On May 26th 1918, Georgia was declared an independent state. Sadly, the power of governing authority was not vested in the National Party but in the Socialist. On June 27th 1918, St. Kirion was killed in the village of Martkhopi.

The Socialists' government failed to see in proper perspective the significance of the Church in the people's life. All this was a matter of serious concern to the Catholicos-Patriarch Leonid.

The Mensheviks failed to discern an imminent danger emerging from Russia's political unrest and in 1921 the latter, making use of this failure, conquered the country once again.

In the same year, after the death of Patriarch Leonid, the Church Council elected St. Ambrosi (Khelaia) to the Throne of the Catholicos-Patriarch.

The Bolshevik Russia, having annexed Georgia, took steady and drastic measures against the Church, targeted at her complete destruction. The Christians had to endure multiple persecutions but none can be compared with the ruthlessness of the one which the Communists conducted in the 20s and 30s of the 20th centuries. They destroyed churches, tortured clergymen, put pressure on them, robbed churches and monasteries.

In the 20s of the 20th century more than thousand churches were closed, the service was cancelled.

Precisely, that persecution was the wave which aroused anger of the Catholicos-Patriarch Ambrosi Khelaia who truly sacrificed his life to his people by sending an address to the Conference in Guinea making known for the whole world the ordeal of the Georgian people. In his report he demanded to compel Russia to withdraw the troops and allow the Georgians to ?create the forms and structures of the social and political life which would be relevant to their life and not dictated or imposed by others?.

The Russian government, very indignant with the letter, arrested and brought to trial Patriarch Ambrosi; with him were arrested the likeminded clergymen: St. Nazari (Lezhava) Metropolitan of Kutaisi, Archimandrite Paul Japaridze, Kalistrate Tsintsadze who was Archpriest of Kashueti Church, deacon Dimitri (Lazarishvili) and others. In the process of investigation, they put pressure on the Patriarch, demanding from him to deny the issues, put forth by him at the conference. Nevertheless, in his profound final word the Patriarch underscored them as indispensable. He was sentenced to 7 years of imprisonment. Due to his illness, the term was reduced to 6 years. He died at the age of 66, on March 28th, 1927.

Under Communist rule, it befell on the Church of Georgia that the life within her bosom was determined by the benevolence of the governing authorities. This period can be divided into three stages. The Church was still persecuted until the year 1943. When at war with Germany, the government condescended mercifully on her and, acknowledging the independence of the Church of Russia, granted her the right to elect the Patriarch; respectively, the circumstances improved for the Church of Georgia also.

In 1943 the Russian Church recognized the three rights of the Church of Georgia: her autocephaly, the Patriarchal dignity and the 6th place in the diptych.

Notwithstanding these changes, under Khrushchev's rule the things reversed to the worse as his policy of ?democratic warming? did not extend to the Church.

In those times, clergymen were persecuted. However, different methods were applied to them. They were blackmailed by special state bodies. Here, we should remember the life of Patriarch Ephrem II who was persecuted thus. The same policy of moral persecution continued up to the early period of His Holiness Patriarch Ilia II and ended as late as in 1985.

The conditions sharply changed to the better side from 1985-86, but during the 70 years of the Communist rule many generations had been brought up with a negative attitude towards the Church and clergymen and this created an insurmountable difficulty for the people.

In their last years, the authorities allowed the edition and distribution of the Bible, neither was banned the publication of the Holy Scriptures in newspapers. This created a backdrop for the sects to disseminate their teaching. Denominations of Baptists, Jehovah's Witnesses and others were provided with ample opportunity of a full-scale activity since they acknowledge the authority of the Bible but not that of the Church or of the clergymen.

Although the restoration of the autocephaly of the Church was proclaimed on March 12th 1917, the Russian Church only recognized it in 1943; the Orthodox Churches worldwide recognized it on the January 25th 1990. However, the question of her place in the diptych has not been determined so far; the place of the Church of Georgia has not been determined up to now and is still the issue of study for the Orthodox Churches the world over.

Late in the 20th century, his Holiness and Beatitude Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia Ilia II and the Holy Synod blessed the best sons of the country and prayed for them and for their cause of the restoration of Georgia's independence. After the people had regained freedom, they responded with love and gratitude to their blessing and the nation started to intensively return to the faith; new churches have been built in every town and village; the Holy Church and the state have signed a ?Concordance? which is targeted at the inspiration and edification of the Georgian nation and their sacred Orthodox faith. Amen.

MARINA GIGOLASHVILI, ROLAN KILADZE, GEORGE RAMISHVILI, VASILI KUKHIANIDZE

Georgian E. Kharadze National Astrophysical Observatory at Ilia Chavchavadze State University, Tbilisi, Georgia

1. Introduction
At present it is considered that Christianity was declared a state religion in Georgia in circa 326 AD, during the reign of King Mirian and Queen Nana. In the Georgian Chronicle [1] (Kaukhchishvili, 1955) it is stated that this event is connected with the adoption of Christianity by
King Mirian. Once he was hunting somewhere between Mtskheta (the ancient capital of Georgia) and Khashuri, near Mt. Tkhoti in dense woodland. It rapidly got dark and the Sun disappeared from the sky.
Mirian began to ask his traditional pagan gods, but to no avail. Then he addressed the god whom Nino from Cappadocia believed in (subsequently she became Saint Nino, a woman whose name is inseparably linked with the spread of Christianity in Georgia) and there was a miracle; the darkness suddenly disappeared and the Sun began shining in the sky again. Then Mirian turned to the East and thanked “Nino’s god”.

2. Contemporary investigations
In the 1930s the Georgian historian Ivane Javakhishvili appealed to astronomers to answer the question whether a total solar eclipse happened in Georgia in the fourth century or not. Based on the famous Canon der Finsternisse of Oppolzer [2], in which the change in the length of the day with current time (the result of tidal friction) was taken into account incompletely, astronomers could not find any eclipse during the mentioned period. Thus it seemed that the question was resolved.
However, after detailed tables and maps of solar and lunar eclipses had been published on the Web by Espenak [3], we have found out that a total solar eclipse did indeed occur in Georgia on 6 May 319 AD.

3. The circumstances of the solar eclipse
By calculating the circumstances of the eclipse with the use of Bessel's improved elements, we have found that Mount Tkhoti was on the central line of the eclipse [4-6]. For the place where Mirian was hunting (λ = 44°.55; φ = +41°.99), the circumstances of the eclipse are as follows: the start of the partial eclipse was at 14 h 58 m 01 s Universal Time (UT); the second contact was at 15 h 51 m 57 s UT; the third contact was at 15 h 53 m 50 s UT; the maximal phase was 1.018. The moments of sunset are as follows: bottom edge - at 15 h 59 m 24 s UT, top edge - at 16 h 02 m 29 s UT.
The central line of the eclipse passed through the settlements of Tsageri, Ambrolauri, Tskhinvali and Mtskheta. The northern boundary passed through the Caucasus Range (Elbrus, Upper Baksan and Kazbek). The southern boundary passed through Lake Paliastomi, Abastumani, Aspindza, Dmanisi and Akhtala. From the east the strip of the complete eclipse was limited by a line from Gardabani to Sagarejo.
Hence, the eclipse happened in the evening, before sunset; the duration of the total phase was about 2 min. At the moment of the maximal phase the height of the Sun above horizon was only 0°.8. The sunset began 5.6 min later, after the end of total phase (i.e., after the third contact).
We have investigated every solar eclipse (total, partial and annular) during the period 290-365 AD. In Table 1, the list of solar eclipses with a phase more than 0.8 for the period mentioned above is given for Mt. Tkhoti. In the columns of Table 1 are consistently given: the year, the month and the day of an eclipse, the moments of the first and second contacts, the maximal phase and the third and fourth contacts. In the last two columns are given the heights of the Sun above horizon (in degrees) at the moment of the maximal phase of an eclipse and the maximal phase (in %).

Table 1. The list of solar eclipses with a phase more than 0.8 during the reign of King Mirian

Year Mn Day 1 cont. 2 cont Max. ph. 3 cont 4 cont Altitude Phase
306 7 27 7h17m34s   8h39m49s   10h15m05s 41°.4 83.2
319 5 6 17 57 58 18h51m54s 18 52 50 18h53m47s   0.9 101.7
346 6 6 6 18 52   7 16 42   8 19 44 29.6 99.3
348 10 9 7 40 54   8 45 24   9 54 31 25.7 87.6
355 5 28 5 55 51   6 53 35   7 56 47 24.7 87.3


4. Other evidences
According to Kartlis Tskhovreba [1]), 3 crosses from cypress were made on 1 May. According to Ioane Zosime [7], it was the third Sunday after Easter. One of these crosses was raised near the capital of Georgia, Mtskheta, on 8 May. However, the year is not mentioned in these sources.
From further investigation it will be clarified that the event studied by us occurred before the First Council of Nicaea (325 AD). Hence, the contemporary rules of calculation on Easter were not still canonized. For this reason the authors have calculated the date on Easter by all possible methods.
To ascertain the exact date of this incident the authors investigated the data on all Easters during the probable period of the reign of King Mirian. With this period, the years when Easter took place on 17 April, have been chosen. Hence, the third Sunday after Easter fell on 1 May.
In Table 2, the data on Easters in the appropriate years are presented. In the first 3 columns are given the moments (year, month, day, hour and minute) of the first full moon after a spring equinox, according to Espenak [2]; in the following columns the data on Easter calculated by us by using different methods are given: by the ancient 19-year lunar cycle and approximate formulas of Gauss and Мееus [8-10]. In the last column of the table are given Easter data, selected by the authors with the use of the exact moments of full moon.

Table 2. The data on Easters during the reign of King Mirian

  Espenak   Lunar Cycle Gauss and Meeus Selected data
298 13 Apr 23h56m 13 Apr 17 Apr  
309 11 Apr 14 15 12 Apr 17 Apr  
315 6 Apr 11 28 5 Apr 10 Apr  
320 9 Apr 14 01 10 Apr 10 Apr 17 Apr
326 4 Apr 4 47 4 Apr 3 Apr 10 Apr
337 1 Apr 23 23 2 Apr 3 Apr  
343 27 Mar 19 23 27 Mar 27 Mar 3 Apr
348 31 Mar 13 13 1 Apr 3 Apr  
354 25 Mar 10 22 25 Mar 27 Mar  
365 23 Mar 20 14 24 Mar 27 Mar  


As is clear from Table 2, a 17 April Easter could only take place in the years 298, 309 and 320 AD. In Table 1, only two eclipses (306 and 319) are presented which could happen before the years when Easter took place on 17 April. However, the eclipse of 306 must be excluded for two reasons: it was a partial eclipse (with a maximal phase of 82%) and happened early in the morning. But this incident happened to King Mirian in the evening [1].

6. Conclusions
In the authors' opinion, the eclipse seen by King Mirian happened on the evening of 6 May, 319 AD. Later, in May 320 AD, cypress crosses were made and raised. Thus, we have answered the question raised 70 years ago by the Georgian historian Ivane Javakhishvili about the occurrence of a total solar eclipse in Georgia in the fourth century. The eclipse seen by King Mirian happened on the evening of 6 May, 319 AD. Later, in May 320 AD, cypress crosses were raised and Christianity was become the state religion of Georgia.


References

1. KAUKHCHISHVILI, S. (Editor), Kartlis Tskhovreba, Vol. 1, Sakhelgami, Tbilisi, pp. 108-111, 1955 (in Georgian).
2. OPPOLZER, Th. Von, Canon der Finsternisse, Kaiserlich-Koniglichen Hof und Staatsdruckerei, Wien, pp. 146–149, Blatt 73, 1887.
3. ESPENAK, F. NASA eclipse home page. Available online at: http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/eclipse.html (July 2003).
4. GIGOLASHVILI, M.SH., KILADZE, R.I., KUKHIANIDZE, V.J., RAMISHVILI G.T. Was the King Mirian’s miracle a natural phenomenon? Transdisciplinarity in Religion and Science, 1, 27-29, 2007.
5. KILADZE R.I., GIGOLASHVILI, M.SH., RAMISHVILI G.T., KUKHIANIDZE, V.J. On the possible date of adoption of Christianity as the state religion in Georgia, Bulletin of the Georgian National Academy of Sciences, 175, No. 2, 137-140, 2007.
6. GIGOLASHVILI, M.Sh., KILADZE R.I., KUKHIANIDZE, V.J., RAMISHVILI G.T. On the date when Cristianity become the state religion of Georgia, Astronomical and Astrophysical Transactions, V. 26, Issues 4-5, 199-201, 2007.
7. MUSKHELISHVILI, D. Saqartvelo IV-VIII Saukuneebshi (Georgia in IV-VIII Centuries), p. 25. Tbilisi, 2003 (in Georgian).
8. GUNIA B., Archpriest. Liturgikuli Shtudiebi I, Sapaseqo gamotvlebi (Liturgical Studies I.
Easter Calculations). Tbilisi, 2006 (in Georgian).
9. KLIMISHIN I.A. Kalendari i khronologiya (Calendars and Cronology), M. “Nauka”, p. 191,
1981 (in Russian).
10. KULIKOV S. Nit’ Vremen. Malaya Entsiklopediya Kalendarya (Thread of time. Small
Encyclopedia of calendar), M. “Nauka”, p. 288, 1991 (in Russian).

Introduction

Caucasia, the territory bounded by the Black and Caspian Seas and taking its name
from the Caucasus Mountains, has been a vibrant centre of Christianity since late
antiquity. By the reign of Constantine the Great, monarchs of the eastern Georgian
district of K‘art‘li (Greek Iberia) and Armenia had already embraced the Christian God;
soon afterwards Christianity also took root in nearby Lazika/Colchis and Caucasian
Albania. As Cyril Toumanoff (1963) and others have demonstrated, in many respects
early Christian Caucasia constituted a single historical and socio-cultural unit.
However, divergent responses to the imperial contest for Caucasia and the processes
leading to the establishment of separate Armenian and K‘art‘velian ‘national’ churches
ultimately led to a clear religious break, beginning in the early seventh century. Despite
this ecclesiastical estrangement, Armeno–Georgian relations have endured to the
present day, not least because of the shared experience of invasion and conquest by
foreign imperial powers as well as the persistence of the extensive, bicultural Armeno–
Georgian frontier zone. Any investigation of Christianity in Georgia must therefore take
into consideration the history of neighbouring lands, especially Armenia.
The Early Period
The Georgian Orthodox Church is one of the several ‘national’ churches of Eastern
Christianity and officially traces its foundation to the alleged evangelization of western
Georgia by the apostle Andrew and his companion Simon ‘the Canaanite’. But this is
a late tradition. The Andrew legend began to take root in Byzantium only in the ninth
century, largely in response to the special apostolic authority claimed by the papacy.
Embellished stories about Andrew’s travels quickly spread throughout eastern
Christendom. Within a century or two they were embraced and further expanded
by Georgian monks working in places such as Mount Athos and St Catherine’s mon-
astery on Mount Sinai.
Several lines of archaeological evidence, including burials, have shown beyond any
doubt that a small Christian presence already existed in eastern Georgia in the third
century. It is possible that some Jewish colonists in the K‘art‘velian cities of Urbnisi and
Mc‘xet‘a (Mtskheta), the royal seat, were early Christian adherents. Although the
Jewish presence in eastern Georgia goes back to a more ancient time, these colonies
were enlarged by the exodus following the Jewish Wars in the first and second centu-
ries. The Georgian written tradition, dating from the seventh century onwards, recalls
this fact by identifying some of the earliest Christian converts in K‘art‘li as Jews and by
advancing the spurious claim that two K‘art‘velian Jews witnessed the Crucifixion.
Along with this Jewish influence, Christian ideas also were introduced to eastern
Georgia by Manichaeans and, it would seem, Gnostics.
Early Georgian Christianity is characterized by its tremendous diversity, inclusive-
ness, and syncretic quality. The cosmopolitanism of pre-modern Caucasia, not just in
the religious sphere, owed much to the region’s status as a major Eurasian crossroads
and its proximity to the fabled Silk Roads. A sustained push to create a single, tightly
controlled Georgian Christianity and a concomitant obsession with identifying and
rooting out heresy commenced much later, in the ninth and tenth centuries, and
especially so in the eleventh to thirteenth centuries, under the Byzantine-oriented
Bagratids.
It is difficult to gauge the prevalence of Christianity among the eastern Georgians
before the fourth century. This uncertainty changes with the conversion of King Mirian
III (variants: Mirean/Mihran; r. 284–361) and his family, from whose reign Christian-
ity acquired the protection of the monarchy; within a century or so it became the
dominant faith of the realm. The earliest written story of Mirian’s conversion, an event
dated by many scholars to around 337, is preserved in Rufinus’ Ecclesiastical History,
which was composed in Latin in the early fifth century. The oldest extant (written)
Georgian account, The Conversion of K‘art‘li, is a product of the seventh century, while
a considerably more elaborate version, The Life of Nino, derives from the ninth or tenth
century. The interrelationship of these texts and the provenance of their traditions has
inspired lively debate, though most specialists accept that the historical Mirian was
converted through the intercession of the foreign, perhaps Cappadocian, holy woman
Nino and that he consequently favoured the Church in K‘art‘li by offering royal protec-
tion, supporting its administration, and contributing to the building of churches. The
chief prelate, sequentially styled bishop, archbishop, and then from the end of the fifth
century catholicos (Georgian kat‘alikos), was resident at the royal city Mc‘xet‘a.
Over the next two centuries a network of bishoprics was established under the
watchful eye of the K‘art‘velian king. Eastern Georgia’s landscape was predominantly
non-urban and so the administrative model adopted by the Church in the Roman/Byz-
antine Empire was not appropriate. K‘art‘velian bishops tended to be headquartered
at the estates of the most powerful aristocratic families (e.g., C‘urtavi in the Armeno–
Georgian frontier zone) and, after the sixth century, at important monasteries.
Extremely little is known about the early ecclesiastical hierarchy except that the
Archbishop of Mc‘xet‘a stood at its head. According to a later written tradition, Nino
herself selected the first two leaders of the Church in K‘art‘li. Between the fourth and
sixth centuries, from King Mirian to King P‘arsman VI (r. from 561), the chief prelates
were foreigners; several were Greek, while others were Armenian, Syrian and
Iranian (‘Iranian’ in this context may denote ‘Manichaean’). In fact, the initial phase
of Christianization was very much a pan-Caucasian phenomenon in which non-
Caucasians assumed a prominent role.
The Church in K‘art‘li was claimed by the Patriarchate of Antioch from an early
time, although in practice Caucasia was often beyond Antioch’s jurisdictional reach.
Up to the Arab conquest in the seventh century, when regular communications between
Caucasia and Syria were disrupted, the chief bishop of the Church in K‘art‘li received
ordination from Antioch. There is a later, dubious tradition, probably originating in the
eleventh century, that the exiled fourth-century Antiochene patriarch, Eustathius,
made his way to eastern Georgia and was responsible for guiding the affairs of the local
church. Similarly problematic is Elguja Xint‘ibidze’s assertion (1996) that some of
the early Cappadocian fathers, including Basil the Great, might actually have been
‘Iberians’, i.e., Georgians. Although there may in fact be a genealogical connection
of some kind, there is no compelling reason to believe that Basil identified himself as a
Georgian or that the alleged Georgian link was in some way instrumental to the forma-
tion of his ideas.
In order to propagate the faith rapidly among Mirian’s subjects, Christian leaders
deliberately invented a script for the K‘art‘velian idiom of Georgian so that biblical and
other religious texts could be translated into the local language. There is considerable
controversy about the origins of the Georgian script. The c.800 Life of the Kings, the
initial text of the corpus of medieval Georgian histories known as K‘art‘lis c‘xovreba (the
so-called Georgian Royal Annals or ‘Georgian Chronicles’), credits the first K‘art‘velian
monarch P‘arnavaz (r. 299–234 bce) with the invention of Georgian writing in early
Hellenistic times. There is, however, no direct evidence to support this fanciful claim.
For its part, the medieval Armenian tradition gives the honour of creating scripts for
Armenian, Georgian, and Caucasian Albanian to the Armenian cleric Mashtots, also
known as Mesrop. However, surviving manuscripts of the vita of Mashtots, like those
transmitting The Life of the Kings, postdate the schism between the Armenian and
K‘art‘velian Churches, and it is altogether possible that both have been manipulated
so as to give their respective parties precedence. In terms of chronology there can be
no question, however, that all three Caucasian scripts were fashioned by a Christian
impulse at about the same time, in the second half of the fourth century or early fifth
century. Thus, while Mashtots might not have been involved personally with oversee-
ing the creation of the Georgian script, there is every reason to think that a Christian
pan-Caucasian effort was afoot. Armenian clerics would have played a conspicuous
role in the project since their Church – established just a generation previously, after
the conversion of King Trdat c.314 – was the largest and organizationally the most
developed among the embryonic Caucasian churches.
Thus by the end of the fourth and certainly by the start of the fifth century, Christian
clerics had equipped themselves with a Georgian script, called asomt‘avruli. The Gospels
were probably the first to be rendered into Georgian. Translated ecclesiastical literature
has remained important in Georgia ever since. None of these early translations have
survived intact; the oldest extant Georgian manuscripts are palimpsest fragments of
translations deriving from the fifth to the eighth century. They are exclusively religious
in nature and transmit texts from both the Old and New Testaments, as well as liturgi-
cal, homiletic, and even apocryphal works. It should be noted that some Byzantine
sources that are otherwise lost are now preserved only in Georgian translations, includ-
ing Hippolytus’ Commentary on the Song of Songs, Metrophanes of Smyrna’s Commentary
on Ecclesiastes, Eustratius of Nicaea’s Brief Memorandum on When and Why the Romans
and their Church Deviated from the Divine Eastern Church, and On Festivals, the last of
which was fabulously attributed to Justinian I. Works originally composed in yet other
languages are also uniquely preserved in Georgian, including The Passion of Michael of
Mar Saba, which was translated from Arabic in the ninth or tenth century.
At the end of the fifth century the first known example of original Georgian literature
appeared: The Martyrdom of Shushaniki, composed by her confessor Iakob C‘urtaveli
(Jacob of C‘urtavi). Like other specimens of early Georgian literature, it relates the deeds
of a holy person. Original Georgian literary works are rather uncommon prior to the
rise of the Bagratid dynasty in the ninth century, nevertheless hagiography appears to
have been the genre of choice in the initial stage of local literature. These saintly biog-
raphies were written by Christians for the strengthening and defence of the faith of
Christ, but they relate relatively few details about the condition and structure of the
contemporary Church in K‘art‘li. However, the Georgian-language vitae of Shushaniki
(fifth century), Evstat‘i (c.600), and Habo (variant Abo, eighth century) are testaments
to the diverse, multicultural character of early Georgian Christianity. All three of these
Christian heroes were non-K‘art‘velians who lived and were killed in eastern Georgia:
Shushaniki was an Armenian princess; Evstat‘i, an Iranian and son of a Zoroastrian
high priest; and Habo, an Arab. What was most important in these early hagiographies
is a sense of Christian affiliation, not ethnicity.
In the case of Evstat‘i and Habo, saintly biographies demonstrated that Christianity
could overcome its enemies and doubters. Further, the physical location of the stories
in eastern Georgia was of immense importance, for it showed that even in Caucasia, so
far from the Holy Land, the Christian God could work miracles and guide local affairs.
Biblical history was enlarged geographically and chronologically through such tradi-
tions. The originals of such vitae are lost, and the copies that we do have are typically
found in collections of saints’ lives of the eleventh century onwards. Although all of
this material is in Georgian, the vast majority of the vitae celebrate holy men and
women from elsewhere in the Christian world. Other materials in the collections consist
of ecumenical Christian patristic, homiletic, theological, and exegetical writings, these
works having been translated into Georgian, often from Greek. For example, the
eleventh-century Parxali mravalt‘avi (polycephalon) incorporates the Georgian vitae of
Shushaniki and Habo as well as materials relating to Nino, but also well over a hundred
items of an ecumenical nature. As a consequence of this structure, Georgian saints
were made every bit as legitimate as saints recognized by the universal Church, and
Georgian Christianity was made part of the larger Christian experience.
The writing of saints’ lives in eastern Georgia constantly evolved to reflect changing
local conditions. The most ancient Georgian hagiographies are passions and martyr-
doms. Then, after the foundation of monasticism in K‘art‘li in the sixth century, the



lives and activities of other holy men (and, rarely, women), especially monks, were
composed. In the seventh century a narrative of Nino’s travails was put into writing.
Out of this hagiographical context was produced the first written Georgian-language
historiographical texts in the early ninth century. It is worth noting that medieval
Georgian histories tend to focus narrowly on kings and kingship and offer relatively
few clues about the state of the local church.
Original and translated Georgian literature alike reveals the southerly orientation
of early Georgian Christianity, towards Jerusalem, Syria and Armenia. The earliest
written versions of Nino’s biography exude the eastern Georgians’ deep admiration for
Jerusalem. Among other things, Nino was given a direct – but possibly fabulous – con-
nection with that city and its patriarch, and holy sites in Mc‘xet‘a were named in
honour of its most important Christian places. A number of scholars have shown the
preservation of the Jerusalem rite in original and translated Georgian sources of the
pre-Bagratid period (i.e., especially before the tenth century). Of special importance are
the medieval Georgian iadgaris, roughly the equivalent of Byzantine tropologia. In the
words of musicologist Peter Jeffery,

Though the original Greek manuscripts are lost, the medieval Georgian translations permit
us to know what [the early Jerusalem repertories] contained, to trace their historical
development, and to document the influence Jerusalem asserted on other Eastern and
Western centers of liturgical chant . . . Georgian chant is in some respects our most direct
witness to the period and processes in which all medieval Christian liturgical chant was
formed.

T‘amila Mgaloblishvili’s splendid investigation (1991) of the Klarjet‘ian mravalt‘avi has
substantiated the importance of the era of King Vaxtang I Gorgasali (r. 447–522) in
the translation and adaptation of liturgical and other ecclesiastical materials into
Georgian.
Indeed, the reign of Vaxtang has traditionally been portrayed as a period of tremen-
dous growth for Georgian Christianity. There can be no question of the extension of
bishoprics in this era as well as the translating, writing, and copying of texts both at
home and by K‘art‘velian monks resident abroad, especially in Levantine monasteries
such as Mar Sabas. The pattern of foreign monasteries as the central sites of Georgian
literary production was thus established back in the fifth century. It was also at this
time that we observe the eastern Georgians being drawn into the theological disputes
of the larger Church. In an attempt to secure K‘art‘velian support and to acknowledge
local support of the empire, the Byzantine government recognized – and perhaps itself
instigated – the change in status of the K‘art‘velian chief prelate from archbishop to
catholicos, around the year 480. Fully-fledged autocephaly would not be achieved,
however, until the Arab conquest or later. In the sixth century eastern Georgian bishops
attended ecclesiastical councils hosted by the Armenians and together with other
Caucasian religious leaders voiced their opposition to Chalcedon.
However, eastern Georgia’s geopolitical situation and especially the increasing
weakness of its monarchy compelled the K‘art‘velian secular and religious elite to seek
aid from Constantinople. The growing Iranian menace forced Vaxtang to seek refuge
in Byzantine-controlled eastern Anatolia on at least two occasions. Sassanid influence
steadily expanded in eastern Georgia: an Iranian marzbān was established in the
recently-(re)founded city of T‘bilisi (older orthography Tp‘ilisi, Russian Tiflis) in 523,
and according to the careful research of Toumanoff (1963), K‘art‘velian kingship was
completely extinguished by Iran several decades later, around the year 580. Within a
decade the political vacuum was filled by a series of ‘presiding princes’, which lasted
down to the re-establishment of local kingship by the Bagratid dynasty in 888.
The Long Sixth Century is perhaps the single most developmentally significant
period of Georgian Christianity. Though the K‘art‘velian political situation plunged
deeper and deeper into crisis, the Church in K‘art‘li was strengthened and remade itself
into a ‘national’ organization. During the reign of P‘arsman VI (561 to 579 at latest),
the so-called Thirteen Syrian Fathers under the leadership of the Iovane Zedazadneli
(John ‘of Zedazadeni’) entered eastern Georgia and acquired the king’s permission to
establish a series of monasteries. Among them were Davit‘ Garesjeli (David ‘of Garesja’),
founder of the monastic complex in the Garesja (variant Gareji) desert in the eastern
region of Kaxet‘i, and Shio Mghwmeli, who established a monastery at the Mghwme
(Mghvime) caves just upriver from Mc‘xet‘a. The Thirteen Syrian Fathers attracted a
considerable body of local pupils and this increased the demand for books throughout
the land.
It is worth recalling that while these men are credited with the implantation of
monasticism in eastern Georgia, the K‘art‘velians had previously been acquainted with
it; a considerable number of K‘art‘velians, like the famous anti-Chalcedonian Peter the
Iberian, had journeyed abroad, especially to Jerusalem. The Syrian monks were likely
anti-Chalcedonians (modern observers have variously identified them as Miaphysites
and Nestorians), although our relatively late sources do not indicate how or whether
this affiliation affected their labours in eastern Georgia. However, at the time of their
arrival, the Church in K‘art‘li remained in the non-Chalcedonian camp with the
Armenians and Caucasian Albanians.
Yet the anti-Chalcedonian union among Caucasian Christians was becoming
increasingly fragile. P‘arsman VI’s reign witnessed not only the implantation of monas-
ticism in eastern Georgia but also the ‘nativization’ of the K‘art‘velian ecclesiastical
hierarchy. A dramatic shift in self-consciousness resulted in the struggle waged by the
inflexible catholicoi of K‘art‘li and Armenia. According to the later sources for the
episode preserved in the Armenian Book of Letters (Girk‘ T‘ght‘ots‘), at first the dispute
centred on the Armenian allegation that the K‘art‘velian Catholicos Kwrion had not
dedicated his full energies to the war against ‘Nestorianism’. At the heart of the struggle
were three issues. First, what was the proper relationship of Christian Caucasia with
the Byzantine Empire? Second, was the diversity of Christianity as practised in the
eastern Georgian domains appropriate? Finally, who, if anyone, should have the right
to make decisions affecting the Christians of greater Caucasia, including the definition
of what constituted Orthodoxy? In other words, who, if anyone, held ultimate ecclesi-
astical authority in Christian Caucasia and what was the structure of the regional
church hierarchy?
The Armenians believed themselves, or at least local ecclesiastical councils held
under the presidency of the Armenian catholicos, to possess that ultimate, pan-
Caucasian authority. Kwrion dissented, an action not unexpected in light of the great
energy and newfound boldness displayed by K‘art‘velian church officials. Finally, at
their Third Council of Dvin, held in 607, the Armenians condemned Kwrion and his
adherents, and a schism between the two Caucasian churches was set into motion.
It would be another century before this break would become permanent. Though
Armenian polemical works were directed against the eastern Georgians not long after
Dvin III (this occurring within the larger context of the separation of the imperial and
Armenian churches studied by Nina Garsoïan, 1999), the K‘art‘velians would seem to
have ‘returned fire’ only much later. The earliest known such work was penned by the
eleventh-century Catholicos Arsen Sap‘areli (‘of Sap‘ara’).
Kwrion’s Christological orientation has proven a bone of contention: was he a Dio-
physite, a Miaphysite or a Monothelite? There is some evidence suggesting the last, but
what is certain is that this public dispute with the Armenians brought theology squarely
into the K‘art‘velian foreground. And to the eastern Georgians, the theological issue
was inseparable from the question of relations with Byzantium. Over the course of the
sixth century, the eastern Georgian elite pinned its protection and fate more and more
on Constantinople, and the Armenians had objected to this and resented its pos-
sible implications. From Constantinople’s perspective, such alliances required what
amounted to a declaration of faith: for the K‘art‘velians to receive Byzantine support
and assistance, they would have to embrace the imperial form of Christianity. Kwrion
seems to have put his church on that path. But in the reign of the Byzantine Emperor
Heraclius (610–41), a great many K‘art‘velian churchmen abandoned their non-
Chalcedonian position. Heraclius’ very appearance in K‘art‘li, as he was en route to
Sassanid Iran, and his promotion of Byzantine Christianity, was unprecedented in
Georgian history. So great was the impact that the episode is uniquely reported in three
separate medieval Georgian-language histories.
The excitement stemming from Heraclius’ defeat of the Iranian army and his sacking
of Seleucia-Ctesiphon was short-lived. Iran and Byzantium had been exhausted from
the prolonged war, and both were susceptible to the new, well-organized opponent
from the south, the Arabs. Sassanid Iran was an initial target, the Arabs managing to
kill the last Sassanid king in 651. Byzantine possessions in Mesopotamia were also
coveted by the Arabs. The routing of a Byzantine army at Yarmuk in August 636
opened the door to Syria; by 638 Syria and Palestine, including the patriarchates at
Jerusalem and Antioch, were in Muslim hands. The invasion of Christian Caucasia
commenced by 640 and five years later Arab troops had penetrated eastern Georgia.
In 654–5 the city of T‘bilisi surrendered and eastern Georgia was occupied. As was the
case in neighbouring Armenia, a major component of the Arabs’ approach was the
colonization of Christian Caucasia.
In the meantime, Byzantine Egypt also succumbed to the Arabs, in September 642.
Egypt is mentioned here because of the infamous Patriarch Cyrus of Alexandria. It was
Cyrus, a favourite of Heraclius and a staunch advocate of Monothelitism, who surren-
dered Egypt. This Cyrus may have a direct connection to Georgia. Zaza Alek‘sidze
(1968) has advanced the provocative argument that Cyrus is none other than the
Catholicos Kwrion. That Cyrus was deemed personally responsible for the dramatic loss
of Egypt to the infidels, and that he and his Monothelite partners were singled out and
excommunicated at the Sixth Ecumenical Council in 681, may explain why Kwrion’s
memory was expunged from medieval Georgian sources.
By the end of the seventh or start of the eighth century, Christianity in eastern
Georgia had been radically transformed. For the first time in its history, a distinct tradi-
tion of the foundation of K‘art‘velian Christianity was put into writing. In its original
form, the succinct Conversion of K‘art‘li was produced sometime in the seventh century,
presumably within a few decades of the events of 607 (Rapp and Crego 2006). Although
The Conversion undoubtedly preserves many older, accurate memories of how Christi-
anity triumphed in the time of Nino and Mirian, the work as a whole must also be seen
in large measure as a seventh-century declaration of autonomy: the K‘art‘velian
Church was an independent organization and, significantly, connections to the con-
temporaneous conversions of Armenia and Albania have for the most part been
expunged. Indeed, it was in this period that the Church in K‘art‘li was transformed into
the ethnically focused K‘art‘velian Church. Though observers of the time did not explic-
itly note the change or apply new terminology to the local church, the K‘art‘velian
Church was strikingly different in its organization and mission. Its hierarchy, including
the office of catholicos, was now monopolized by eastern Georgians, especially
K‘art‘velians. What is more, it had now become a ‘national’ church, an organization
by and for the dominant K‘art‘velian ethnie. This is reflected in contemporary Georgian-
language vitae, such as the eighth-century Martyrdom of Habo by Iovane Sabanis-dze.
In the case of Habo, an Arab migrant to the Georgian territories, conversion to
Christianity was not enough: he had to embrace the local, K‘art‘velian, form of
Christianity which entailed, inter alia, learning the Georgian language and ‘convert-
ing’ to K‘art‘velian culture. After Habo the heroes of original hagiographies tend to be
K‘art‘velians or other Georgians; the cosmopolitanism of early K‘art‘velian Christianity
was thus curtailed, though by virtue of Georgia’s location in a prominent Eurasian
crossroads this condition never completely disappeared.
K‘art‘velian political authority remained feeble throughout the ninth century, and
as it had in previous times the local church postured to fill the void. But the Arab con-
quest brought changes to the K‘art‘velian Church. As a result of the occupation, what
may have been thousands of religious and secular elites evacuated the region. Some
travelled east into the mountainous far eastern regions of Kaxet‘i, while many others
sought refuge in the Georgian south-west, in regions such as Tao (the Armenian Tayk‘),
Klarjet‘i and Shavshet‘i, where the Arabs had been unable to extend their dominion.
Over the next two centuries a K‘art‘li-in-exile was created, which I call neo-K‘art‘li.
This area was instrumental in the later re-conquest of eastern Georgia. Georgian
Christianity not only survived, it flourished.
From the south-western domains, it gained unprecedented access to Byzantium and
the imperial church, and by the tenth century this influx of Byzantine forms and ideas
led to a reorientation of the local church away from the south and towards the Byzan-
tine Empire. A prime example of this shift in Christian orientation is the deliberate
substitution of the Jerusalemite liturgy with the Constantinopolitan. At the same time,
monastic institutions thrived as never before. A number of enormous, often autono-
mous monastic foundations were established throughout the south western domains.
The chief figure associated with this development is the monk Grigol Xandzt‘eli (George
‘of Xandzt‘a/Khandzt‘a’). Xandzt‘eli’s biography, composed by his pupil Giorgi
Merch‘ule, is not only an extensive record of the growth and development of K‘art‘velian
monasticism, but it also supplies rare glimpses into the political and everyday life of
contemporary neo-K‘art‘li. This vita also expresses the idea of a K‘art‘velian ‘national’
church in so far as it makes the Georgian language (i.e., the K‘art‘velian dialect) not
only a legitimate sacred language but also an essential component of Georgian
Christianity.
Neo-K‘art‘li’s prosperity contributed to the rejuvenation of K‘art‘velian political life
under the Bagratids. Ironically, the Bagratids were originally an Armenian family;
there is evidence that in Vaxtang’s time some of them had already entered the service
of the K‘art‘velian monarchy. But it is in the years immediately following the crushing
of a disastrous uprising by Armenian noble families against the Arabs in 772 that a
branch of the family migrated to neo-K‘art‘li, where they permanently settled and were
rapidly acculturated. In 813 the Bagratid prince Ashot I seized the presiding principate
and three-quarters of a century later, in 888, his relative Adarnase II restored local
kingship. Great though his achievement was, Adarnase could not have guessed that
the Bagratid line of kings would monopolize political power in much of Georgia for the
next thousand years, up until the Russian conquest of the nineteenth century.
The greatest and most enduring achievement of the Georgian Bagratids, who had
risen to power under Byzantine tutelage, was the political unification of lands on both
the eastern and western sides of the Surami mountains, beginning with the union of
part of K‘art‘li, neo-K‘art‘li, and the western region of Ap‘xazet‘i (Russian Abkhazia);
this was engineered by Bagrat III in 1008. It is worth emphasizing that, up to the start
of the Bagratid era, the historical and ecclesiastical experiences of eastern and western
Georgia often diverged. Western territories including Ap‘xazet‘i, and before it Lazika
and Egrisi/Colchis, fell more under the influence (and sometimes direct control) of the
Roman and then the Byzantine Empire. Consequently, western Georgian Christianity
developed along different lines from that in eastern territories such as K‘art‘li (it should
be noted that labelling the western regions as ‘Georgian’ in this early period is extremely
misleading and projects back later realities and perceptions; L. G. Khrushkova’s use of
‘Eastern Black Sea’ (2002) in this context is more historically accurate).
Although the beginning of the conversion of western Georgia may also be traced to
the fourth century, the Christianity introduced and fostered there tended to be more in
line with that sanctioned by Constantinople. Bishops sitting in the western regions took
part in the first and fifth ecumenical councils. Once the Bagratids took the reins of
power in Ap‘xazet‘i, the church of western Georgia was merged with that of the East.
That having been said, however, the K‘art‘velian Church, especially as it existed in
neo-K‘art‘li, often exerted influence over other regions, including western Georgia, long
before the Bagratids assumed control of these places. Thus religious uniformity often
preceded political unity. By the eleventh century, the Bagratids had realigned local
royal imagery – both in art and in the historical texts they sponsored – from its
traditional southern-facing, Iranian orientation to one more attuned to Christian
Byzantium. In this development, too, we must acknowledge the influence of the eastern
Georgian Church and its similar reorientation from the south (in this case, Palestine,
Syria and Armenia) to the west, towards the Byzantine Commonwealth. In other
words, the local church’s intensive adoption and adaptation of Byzantine models from
the ninth and especially tenth century preceded and stimulated a similar reorientation
by the political elite in the tenth and eleventh centuries.


The Medieval Bagratid Period

With the definite expansion of the K‘art‘velian Church beyond lands inhabited
primarily by K‘art‘velians in the tenth and eleventh centuries, we can begin to speak
properly of the Georgian Church. The growing prestige of the Church attracted
the Bagratids’ constant attention. Potentially, the Georgian Church was as much a
powerful ally as it was a dangerous rival. When the Catholicos Melk‘isedek petitioned
for tax immunity around the year 1031, King Bagrat IV (r. 1027–72) had little choice
but to comply, for he relied heavily on the support of the local church in his obstacle-
laden quest for political consolidation and unification. A number of royal charters
acknowledging such immunities along with property rights have come down to us. As
early as Bagrat’s time the crown sometimes attempted to restrict the powers of and even
subordinate the ecclesiastical hierarchy, but these attempts, led by the Georgian
Athonite Giorgi Mt‘acmideli (variant Mtatsmindeli, ‘of the Holy Mountain’), failed. A
reflection of the increasing power and prestige of the Georgian Church is the assump-
tion of the title ‘patriarch’ (patriark‘i) by its chief prelate at some point in the eleventh
century. Who authorized this alteration of status is unknown; it may very well have
been self-generated, without the endorsement or even knowledge of Byzantine
officials.
King Davit‘ II, nicknamed Aghmashenebeli (‘the [Re-]Builder’, r. 1089–1125),
manipulated church affairs to an unprecedented degree. During his reign the first
attested all-Georgian ecclesiastical councils took place, the most famous of which
occurred in 1103 at the neighbouring Ruisi and Urbnisi churches not far from the city
of Gori. These assemblies mimicked the Ecumenical Councils, albeit on a smaller, Cau-
casian scale. At least one council examined Miaphysitism, a burning issue owing to the
Georgian annexation of much of Caucasian Armenia. Indeed, it was in the second half
of the eleventh century that the Georgian Catholicos Arseni Sap‘areli wrote a tract
censuring the anti-Chalcedonian Armenians for the schism. It was in this time, under
the Bagratid regime, that the Georgian Church embarked on an unprecedented pro-
gramme to define, unmask and combat heresy. At the Ruisi-Urbnisi council Davit‘
succeeded in appointing supporters and close associates to many of the highest eccle-
siastical positions. He also created a new official, the mcignobart‘-uxucesi chqondideli,
which combined a major secular position with the bishopric of Chqondidi, one of the
most important episcopal sees in western Georgia. After the patriarchate, the See of
Chqondidi was now the second highest position in the Georgian Church. The king’s
intention was to control appointments to this office in order to manipulate church
affairs as part of his larger project to expand and centralize state control. However, a
headstrong mcignobart‘-uxucesi chqondideli might also turn the institution on its head
by giving the Church a clear path to interfere in secular matters. This tension is evident
throughout the ‘golden age’ of the Bagratids that ended with the Mongol conquest.
The ninth to thirteenth century witnessed an unprecedented blossoming of ecclesi-
astical culture. Stone churches were constructed throughout the Georgian domains,
and they were decorated with beautiful frescoes. This was also a period of intensive
literary output. In 897 the oldest complete copy of the Georgian Gospels was made, the
so-called Adyshi variant, named for the city in the northern region of Svanet‘i in which
it was discovered. In the tenth century a number of Gospels appear: Urbnisi (906), Opiza
(913), K‘sani (early tenth century), Jruchi (936), Mount Sinai (two variants, mid-
century and 978), Parxali (973), Bert‘ay (988), and Tbet‘i (995). As the extensive
studies by Ilia Abuladze show (1944), the ninth and tenth centuries, especially the
period 840 to 960, witnessed the translation of many Armenian hagiographies and
other ecclesiastical texts into Georgian and vice versa. This was an attempt of the two
peoples to understand one another at a time when large numbers of Armenians were
subjected to Georgian political authority.
In the twelfth century, the Georgian Royal Annals, K‘art‘lis c‘xovreba, were trans-
lated and adapted into Armenian. Starting in the early eleventh century we possess
several royal charters granting ecclesiastical tax immunity and the like; such docu-
ments become especially plentiful in the second half of the century. The original eccle-
siastical-historical compilation known as Mok‘c‘evay k‘art‘lisay, with its core component
The Conversion of K‘art‘li (initially composed back in the seventh century), took shape
in early Bagratid times. Its oldest surviving manuscripts were copied in the tenth
century, and include the famous Shatberdi Codex (named for the neo-K‘art‘velian
monastery by the same name founded by Grigol Xandzt‘eli) and the N/Sin.-50 manu-
script from St Catherine’s monastery on Mount Sinai. Mok‘c‘evay k‘art‘lisay includes
The Life of Nino, an enlarged, reworked version of The Conversion, which itself was
written in the ninth or early tenth century.
The role of monasteries in the production and safeguarding of such texts should not
be underestimated. Shatberdi in neo-K‘art‘li was a particularly important literary
centre. Of even greater significance in this regard were Georgian monks and monastic
foundations abroad. The monastic diaspora, especially in the Holy Land and Syria,
played a decisive role in medieval Georgian Christianity. In the ninth to thirteenth
centuries Georgian monks were resident throughout the Eastern Christian world. Mon-
asteries dominated by Georgians or having large Georgian constituencies were also
widespread. The most famous of these were Iveron (Greek for ‘of the Iberians/Geor-
gians’; the Georgians sometimes referred to it as the k‘art‘velt‘a monastiri, or ‘Monastery
of the Georgians’) on Mount Athos, St Catherine’s on Mount Sinai, the Monastery of
the Holy Cross in Jerusalem (rebuilt by Proxore/Prochoros ‘of Shavshet‘i’ in the elev-
enth century), the Monastery of the Black Mountain near Antioch in Syria, and Petri-
cioni near Bachkovo in Bulgaria. A large number of original Georgian compositions,
especially of a theological nature, were produced in these places, and copies were sent
back to Georgia. Many translations of ecclesiastical literature were also made into
Georgian, especially from Greek. The eleventh century saw the formation of distinct
literary schools among Georgian monks. Some advocated a free-form translation from
Greek while others, including Ep‘rem Mcire (Ephrem ‘the Lesser’), promoted transla-
tions that slavishly reproduced the Greek even at the risk of clouding comprehension
of the translated text.
The energetic ‘golden age’ of the medieval Georgian monarchy of the Bagratids came
to an end in the thirteenth century as a consequence of the overextension of resources
on the part of the Crown, the inept rule of Giorgi IV Lasha (r. 1213–23) and the casting
of Mongol hegemony over much of the Caucasian isthmus. Mongol rule had several
consequences. Political power was fragmented, although a shadow of royal authority
endured. At times, the Mongols recognized more than one Bagratid as king simultane-
ously. Bagratid power within Georgia was sometimes questioned, but the Bagratids
entered the post-Mongol era with their monopoly over royal authority intact. The
Georgian Church also survived the Mongol onslaught, although its special position had
in some ways been contested. In Ap‘xazet‘i, during Mongol times, a separate, rival
‘patriarchate’ was established (or re-established; there is a divergence of opinion over
when a patriarchate in Ap‘xazet‘i was first created). As early as 1224, in a response to
a letter announcing the enthronement of Queen Rusudan (r. 1223–45) the previous
year, Pope Honorius III had invited the Georgians to join a new crusade against the
Muslims. The exchange of letters continued under the pontificate of Gregory IX, and in
1240 Rusudan begged him for assistance, as the Mongol invasion was unleashed upon
her country. Though the Pope could do little more than offer encouragement to the
Christians of distant Caucasia, he urged the Georgians to enter formal communion with
the Catholic Church. In the first half of the thirteenth century the Georgian Church
was drifting into schism with the Byzantine Church, and Rusudan seems to have
attempted to counterbalance Byzantine influence with that of the papacy. This is remi-
niscent of an earlier period, the fourth century, when King Mirian had sought to restrict
the influence of Sassanid Iran by accepting the new religion of Constantine the Great.
In the reign of Rusudan and continuing throughout the thirteenth century, Fran-
ciscan and Dominican friars established a foothold in Georgia. In 1328 Pope John XXII
established a see in the city of T‘bilisi and in the following year appointed the Dominican
John of Florence as the first Catholic bishop in Georgia. This see existed down to the
early sixteenth century. Despite these inroads, Orthodox Georgians never accepted
formal reunion with the Roman Church.
From the late 1380s to about 1400 the Georgian lands were invaded by the armies
of Timur (Tamerlane). Many places were devastated; churches and monasteries were
singled out for plunder. Local Bagratid kings were in no position to defend the embattled
Church. Starting under the Mongols, autonomous non-Bagratid ‘principalities’ had
been established in the west and south-west, including in Samc‘xe, Samegrelo (Men-
grelia), and Ap‘xazet‘i. Though a united Georgian kingdom was reassembled by the
Bagratid Alek‘sandre I (r. 1412–42), political union did not extend past his death;
Georgia would not again be united until the establishment of Russian control in the
nineteenth century. In the thirteenth to early fifteenth century, the authority of the
Georgian Church was diminished. Existing churches fell into disrepair and many were
destroyed.
The state of deterioration persisted for the next two centuries. The fall of Constanti-
nople in 1453 deprived the Bagratids and the Georgian Church of potential Byzantine
aid, but the psychological impact was more important than loss of material support,
which for a long time had been meagre. The re-emergence of a strong Iranian state
under the Safavids and the rising fortunes of the Ottomans had dramatic consequences
for Georgia. The intense rivalry of these two Islamic enterprises was often played out
in the Caucasian arena, a situation not unlike the earlier imperial contests fought
in the isthmus by Rome and Byzantium and Iran and Islam. The Georgian political
elite attempted once more to play the great powers off one another, but ultimately
their Christian affiliation was a hindrance as both the Ottomans and Safavids were
Islamic (compare the situation under Mirian III with Christian Byzantium and
Zoroastrian Iran).
Some Georgian princes and kings converted to Islam and the Georgian Church fell
upon even harder times. After their occupation of south-western Georgia in the six-
teenth century, the Ottomans actively established mosques throughout the region.
There were some opportunities to repair existing church buildings, as was the case with
the restoration of the Sioni cathedral in T‘bilisi and Sueti-c‘xoveli (modern Sveti-
c‘xoveli, i.e., Church of the ‘Life-Giving Pillar’) in Mc‘xet‘a by King Vaxtang VI, but this
was the exception rather than the norm. This was also a renewed period of Georgian
martyrs. In September 1624 the queen of Kaxet‘i K‘et‘evan was put to death by
order of Shah Abbas I (r. 1587–1629). Her martyrdom was reported to the pope by
Augustinian fathers, who were then resident in Iran.


The Modern Period

The fact that Catholic monks reported K‘et‘evan’s murder reflects the renewed influ-
ence of Catholicism in the seventeenth century. This influence was made possible
largely through French relations with the Ottomans and Iranians. In 1626 Theatine
missionaries first visited western Georgia. One of their number, Cristoforo Castelli, pro-
duced many detailed drawings of the region and its leaders, which remain a valuable
and unique source of information. From 1661 until their expulsion by the Russians in
1845 Capuchins were established in eastern Georgia, at T‘bilisi. Several Bagratid
princes and kings and even Georgian patriarchs flirted with Catholicism and many
more were sympathetic to it. The famous scholar Vaxushti Bagrationi, a son of Vaxtang
VI and author of a famous history and geography of all Georgia, was educated by
Catholics based in T‘bilisi. Vaxtang’s uncle and adviser, Sulxan-Saba Orbeliani, actu-
ally converted to Catholicism. Orbeliani was author of several books, including the first
lexicon of the Georgian language and memoirs of his travels to western Europe, which
had begun in 1713. This journey was undertaken so as to solicit aid for the embattled
Vaxtang VI from Pope Clement IX and the French King Louis XIV.
The resurgence of Catholicism in Georgia had other important literary consequences.
In 1629 the first Georgian printing press was set up in Rome through the collaboration
of the Georgian envoy Prince-Monk Nikephoros Irbak‘idze and Italian scholars. Yet
again we observe the importance of the tiny Georgian diaspora in the history of Geor-
gian literature and Christianity. The first printed books in Georgian were intended to
aid Catholic missionary endeavours among the Georgians and included a 3,000-word
Georgian-Italian vocabulary. The first printing press in Georgia was established by
Vaxtang VI in T‘bilisi in 1709 and was active until 1723. Early publications were reli-
gious, and included the Four Gospels (1709) and a book of liturgies (1710). However,
the first edition of the great Georgian epic, the Vep‘xistqaosani (The Knight in the Pan-
ther’s Skin), by the thirteenth-century poet Shot‘a Rust‘aveli, appeared in 1712. The
next great centre of Georgian printing was Moscow, where from 1737 books were
published by members of the exiled Georgian royal family. Chief among the early
Moscow publications is the first complete printed edition of the Georgian Bible,
dated 1743.
That Moscow (and St Petersburg) was a centre of early Georgian printing was
hardly accidental. The crushing psychological blow resulting from the destruction of
Christian Byzantium by the Ottomans and the bloody conflict waged in Georgia and
throughout Caucasia by the Ottomans and Iranians compelled many Georgian elites
to look northwards to Orthodox Russia, for support and protection. From the late
fifteenth century, several embassies were exchanged between eastern Georgia and
the Russian Empire. The Orthodox Christianity shared by the Georgians and Russians
was crucial in the growing dialogue. And, as Kenneth Church (2001) has cogently
argued, both peoples contributed to and accepted an ‘extermination thesis’ whereby
Christian Georgian society would be wiped out in the absence of full-scale Russian
intervention.
In 1783 the Bagratid king of eastern Georgia, Erekle II (r. 1762–98), and the Russian
Empress Catherine the Great (r. 1762–96) agreed to make Georgia a ‘protectorate’ of
the empire. Among other things, the Treaty of Georgievisk guaranteed the sovereignty
of the Georgian monarchy and Church. After the devastating Iranian attack upon
eastern Georgia and especially T‘bilisi by Agha Muhammad Khan in 1795 the Geor-
gians were unable to mount serious opposition to further Russian encroachments, and
in 1801 the empire annexed eastern Georgia, in part using the ‘extermination thesis’
to justify its unilateral action. The remaining Georgian lands were gathered under
Russian hegemony over the course of the eighteenth century.
The implications of Russian rule for the Georgian Church were numerous. The
‘patriarchate’ of Ap‘xazet‘i had already disappeared in 1795; with the establishment
of their direct control over the eastern regions of K‘art‘li and Kaxet‘i, Russia sought to
curb Georgian institutions that might challenge their authority. The Georgian Church
was specially targeted and its patriarchate was abolished in 1811, when Antoni II, son
of King Erekle II, was forced into exile. Disenfranchised remnants of the church hierar-
chy were absorbed into the Russian Holy Synod. The first exarch, Metropolitan Varlaam,
belonged to the Georgian nobility. But once Varlaam’s tenure ended in spring 1817,
his successors, starting with Feofilakt Rusanov, were ethnic Russians whose knowledge
of Georgia and its culture was extremely limited.
Georgian Christianity was now subjected to the Russification sweeping across the
empire. The Russian liturgy replaced the Georgian. Episcopal sees in Georgia were
reorganized so as to tighten the exarch’s control. Frescoes in churches were systemati-
cally whitewashed. Over the next century, church buildings were poorly maintained
and by the 1860s and 1870s corruption within the exarchate was rampant. But
although under attack, Georgian ecclesiastical culture was by no means forced into
extinction. For example, some religious books were published in the Georgian lan-
guage. In 1882 Mixail Sabinin’s Sak‘art‘ūēlos samot‘xe (The Paradise of Georgia), a
collection of hagiographical texts celebrating the holy men and women of Georgian
Christianity, was published in St Petersburg (a Russian translation also appeared). And
especially from second half of the nineteenth century, Georgian academics such as
Ivane Javaxishvili (Dzhavakhishvili, Dzhavakhov) embarked on the scholarly study of
Georgian Christianity; their works were published in Russian and Georgian.
In May 1905 Georgian priests and bishops convened in T‘bilisi (Russian Tiflis) to
discuss the critical situation and to issue a call for the restoration of autocephaly. The
Russians could not tolerate this bold defiance and dispatched troops to break up the
meeting. Meanwhile, charges of corruption grew louder with stories of the exarchate
selling icons and other ecclesiastical treasures while at the same time the physical
condition of church buildings worsened. Some twenty episcopal sees were unoccupied
and well over 700 parishes were without pastors. Few Georgians attended services. In
spring of 1908 the Russian exarch Nikon, who was widely regarded as a Georgian
sympathizer, was assassinated. These events attracted the attention of Christians
abroad, including the papacy. In 1910 the Georgian Catholic priest Michel Tamarati
(T‘amarashvili) published in Rome his L’Église géorgienne des origines jusqu’a nos jours.
Though it is now outdated, this book remains the most comprehensive history of
Christianity in Georgia. But it also had a decidedly political purpose. Tamarati not
only painted Catholicism in Georgia in the best possible light, but he also criticized the
illegal abrogation of the centuries-old autocephaly of the Georgian Church and the
heavy-handed policies of the Russian Empire. Indeed, Georgian Christianity had become
central to the Georgian national struggle against Russian rule.
The question of Georgian autocephaly resurfaced during the revolutions of 1917.
After the March uprising, a group of Georgian clerics and bishops forced their way into
the offices of the exarchate and installed Georgians to replace the exarch and his staff.
All-Georgian ecclesiastical councils were held in T‘bilisi in September 1917 and at the
Gelat‘i monastery near K‘ut‘aisi in western Georgia in 1921. The 1917 council elected
Kwrion II (Kyrion) as the catholicos-patriarch of the all-Georgian Church, and with
this act full autocephaly was reclaimed. The name of the new chief prelate was an
auspicious one, for it should be recalled that the first Kwrion had presided over the
K‘art‘velian Church during its estrangement from the Armenian Church at the start of
the seventh century. Needless to say, the Russian Holy Synod vehemently opposed
these actions and deemed them illicit. Until the Second World War, dialogue between
the two Churches virtually disappeared.
Out of the revolutions of 1917 was born the Georgian Democratic Republic. When
it was established in May 1918 its Menshevik leaders tended to see no formal place for
religion in the state government. Their attitudes towards religion, and the Georgian
Church in particular, ranged from indifferent to hostile. However, the local church was
now free from the suppression it had experienced under Russian rule. Freedom of reli-
gion was guaranteed by the new constitution, but here the Georgian Church was not
specially singled out. At the same time, many political figures advocated a legal separa-
tion of Church and state; the debate over this issue continued until 22 February 1921,
when such a clause was introduced into the constitution. Chapter 1, article 31 guar-
anteed the ‘full liberty of conscience’ for each citizen: ‘Everyone has the right to profess
his/her own religion, to change the same, or not to have any religious belief.’ However,
the promulgation of this Act was mostly symbolic for it occurred as Soviet troops were
advancing on eastern Georgia. Later that month, independent Georgia fell to the
Bolsheviks and Soviet rule was extended over the Georgian lands.



Although the government of the USSR did not dismantle the Georgian Church or
rescind its autocephaly, Soviet policies and laws greatly restricted its activities; it was
as if chapter 1.31 of the pre-Soviet constitution had been maintained, but with empha-
sis upon the right of citizens to be atheists. The Catholicos-Patriarch Ambrosi, an out-
spoken critic of Soviet power, was arrested in winter 1923. He remained imprisoned
until shortly before his death in spring 1927. Throughout the 1930s the Georgian
Church suffered the state-sponsored persecution of religion. Soviet attitudes towards
religious groups were altered with the outbreak of the Second World War. The need to
unite in the face of the Nazi threat led Stalin, the ethnically-Georgian leader of the USSR
and a former student of the T‘bilisi Theological Academy, officially to recognize major
religious organizations including the Georgian Church. One of the implications of this
policy was the rapprochement of the Georgian and Russian Churches. In October 1943
the Russian Church formally recognized the autocephaly of its Georgian counterpart,
twenty-six years after the Georgians had reclaimed this status. However, the lifting of
certain restrictions did not lead to a significant revival of Christianity in Georgia.
After the war restrictions on religious organizations re-emerged. It was in this
renewed anti-religious atmosphere, in 1962, that the Georgian Church applied for
admission to the World Council of Churches (WCC), an ecumenical organization
representing over three hundred churches including Anglicans, Protestants and
Orthodox (but not Roman Catholics). Christians around the world were made aware
of the dilapidated state of the Georgian Church. Georgian scholars continued to publish
works about Georgian Christianity, although such publications tended to appear in
small print runs and their circulation was limited to academic circles. To this period
belong the initial volumes of Ilia Abuladze’s splendid Dzveli k‘art‘uli agiograp‘iuli litera-
turis dzeglebi (Monuments of Ancient Georgian Hagiographical Literature), a series
featuring critical editions of medieval Georgian vitae.
Corruption infected the ruling elite of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic in the
early 1970s. The Church was not immune to this wave of corruption, a situation remi-
niscent of the exarchate in the late nineteenth century. Church officials were rumoured
to have sold ecclesiastical treasures and the deteriorating condition of church buildings
was publicized in underground samizdat pamphlets. Among the most active samizdat
writers was Zviad Gamsaxurdia (Gamsakhurdia), who campaigned against corruption
in the Georgian Church and drew attention to continued attempts by the Soviets to
Russify it. As never before, the Georgian Orthodox Church became a potent symbol in
the resistance of the Georgians to the USSR. Along with the Georgian language, the
Church was a constant reminder of Georgia’s distinctiveness but also the wrongs that
had been inflicted by Moscow.


The Late 1970s and After

Upon his enthronement as catholicos-patriarch of all-Georgia in late 1977, Ilia II
embarked on a programme to rejuvenate the Georgian Church. Vacant ecclesiastical
positions were filled, church buildings were refurbished, and some new ones
constructed. Serving as a president of the WCC from 1979 to 1983, he drew global
attention once again to Georgian Christianity and strengthened his Church’s commit-
ment to the ecumenical movement. Ilia also engaged the national movement, espe-
cially in the years of Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms. In early April 1989 Georgians
protested in the streets against what they perceived as threats by the Ap‘xazians (Abk-
hazians) of western Georgia. It was the catholicos-patriarch who addressed the crowd,
rallying the protesters while urging calm. The brutal suppression of the demonstrators
by Soviet troops on 9 April and its aftermath helped propel Zviad Gamsaxurdia to
power. Gamsaxurdia’s Round Table–Free Georgia Bloc enjoyed enormous support in
the October 1990 elections, and independence was declared from the Soviet Union on
9 April 1991, the second anniversary of the 9 April massacre. The following month
Gamsaxurdia was elected president of the Republic of Georgia.
Though Gamsaxurdia held the reins of power only until January 1992, the conse-
quences of his regime for the Georgian Church continued to resonate. Unlike the
Menshevik-dominated Republic of Georgia earlier in the century, Gamsaxurdia’s
Georgia aligned itself closely with the Georgian Orthodox Church. The Church was
crucial to Gamsaxurdia’s vision of Georgian unity. He made prominent public appear-
ances with Patriarch Ilia, and the state government specially endorsed the proselytizing
efforts of the Georgian Church. In addition, the mantra ‘Georgia for Georgians’ was
often heard. Gamsaxurdia reasoned that a strong Georgia depended first and foremost
upon ethnic unity among the Georgian majority; the non-Georgian populations of the
republic were termed ‘guests’ and, in Gamsaxurdia’s mind, should not expect equal
rights with the majority.
Gamsaxurdia made innumerable enemies. In late December 1991 a coup was
launched against the president and he was forced to flee the capital in January. Ironi-
cally, Gamsaxurdia eventually ended up in the care of the Chechen leader Dzhokhar
Dudaev, who championed an independent Chechnya. Back in Georgia, the junta invited
back the former Soviet ruler of Georgia, Eduard Shevardnadze. Although the Georgian
Church remained a favoured institution in Shevardnadze’s Georgia, the large-scale
official assault against ethnic minorities was for the most part rescinded. The exact legal
relationship of the Church and state was still being debated in parliament in fall 2002.
It remains uncertain how the Rose Revolution and the inauguration of the reform-
minded Mixail Saakashvili in early 2004 will affect this situation. However, Saakashvili
and his allies have maintained good relations with the patriarchate. Indeed, just prior
to his official inauguration as president, Saakashvili took an oath administered by
Patriarch Ilia II over the tomb of King Davit‘ II Aghmashenebeli at the monastic complex
of Gelat‘i near K‘ut‘aisi.
At the outset of the twenty-first century, the Georgian Church is again at a cross-
roads. Suppressed by the Russians and Soviets and treated with indifference by the
government of the first Republic of Georgia, it was briefly given special legal status
under Gamsaxurdia and its leaders are now struggling to carve out a privileged place
in post-Soviet Georgian society. With the flood of new freedoms has come a resurgence
of religious practice in Georgia. But a substantial number of Georgians have turned
their backs on the Georgian Orthodox Church and have joined various Protestant sects
in particular. Not since the eras of Nino and Vaxtang Gorgasali has Christianity in
Georgia been so multifarious. Missionaries from western Europe and North America
have entered the country in large numbers, and Georgian Church authorities have
responded to the challenge in various ways. Some have called for a special legal status
for their organization, and some have even advocated the legal banning of ‘foreign’
religions in Georgia (ironically, as medieval Georgian sources themselves acknowledge,
Christianity itself began its existence in Georgia as an imported religion). These issues
lay at the heart of the 1997 crisis. In April of that year, monks from several prominent
Georgian monasteries published an open letter to Ilia II criticizing the ecumenical
movement as ‘heresy’. In particular, they attacked ‘western Protestantism’ and the
ecumenical movement’s endorsement of women in clerical activities, its indifference to
and even support of homosexuality, and its emphasis upon the ‘inclusive’ language of
the Bible. Archimandrite Giorgi of the Shio-Mghvime monastery and his companions
insisted there could be only one church and that any compromise was tantamount to
heresy. Much of this anti-ecumenical attitude was the result of Protestant missionary
activities in post-Soviet Georgia.
The debate broke into the open, opposition rapidly mounted, and the Georgian
Church stood on the verge of internal schism. Ilia reminded dissenters of the virtues
and benefits of ecumenism, but to no avail. Just a short time later, on 20 May 1997,
Ilia summoned ecclesiastical leaders and the decision was reached that the Georgian
Church would immediately withdraw from the World Council of Churches and also the
Council of European Churches. The patriarch was in the awkward position of having
been a WCC president. It is instructive that in his communication of 20 May, Ilia did
not characterize the ecumenical movement as heretical; clearly, he was compelled to
this act as last resort in order to avoid full-blown schism within the Georgian Church.
Anti-ecumenical sentiment remains strong in some quarters. Most dramatically, the
former Orthodox priest Basil Mkalavishvili has been charged with orchestrating attacks
upon non-Orthodox religious groups active in Georgia. Mobs armed with clubs and
carrying crosses, icons, and banners have frequently interrupted meetings of non-
Orthodox groups including Pentecostalists and Baptists. By fall 2002, there had been
nearly a hundred registered acts of violence against Jehovah’s Witnesses, one of the
prime targets of ‘Father Basil’ and his thugs. Despite protests from governments in
Europe and the United States, Georgian authorities have been slow to crack down on
this campaign of violence and intimidation and others like it. Mkalavishvili’s is an
extreme and unfortunate solution to a very real problem facing the contemporary
Georgian Orthodox Church: the proper place of religion, and especially Georgian
Orthodoxy, in a newly independent, post-Soviet, democracy.


References and further reading

Abuladze, I. (1944) K‘art‘uli da somxuri literaturuli urt‘iert‘oba IX-X ss-shi: gamokvleva da tek‘stebi
(Georgian–Armenian Literary Relations, 9th–10th Centuries: Study and Texts). T‘bilisi:
Mec‘niereba.
Alek‘sidze, Z. (1968) Epistlet‘a cigni (The Book of Letters). T‘bilisi: Mec‘niereba.
Blake, R. P. (1924) Georgian theological literature. Journal of Theological Studies (October): 50–64.
Church, K. (2001) From dynastic principality to imperial district: the incorporation of Guria into
the Russian Empire to 1856. PhD dissertation, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.
Djobadze, W. (1976) Materials for the Study of Georgian Monasteries in the Western Environs of
Antioch on the Orontes. Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 327, subsidia 48.
Louvain: CSCO/Peeters.
—— (1992) Early Medieval Georgian Monasteries in Historic Tao, Klarjet‘i, and Shavshet‘i. Stuttgart:
Franz Steiner Verlag.
van Esbroeck, M. (1975) Les plus anciens homéliaires géorgiens: étude descriptive et historique.
Publications de l’Institut orientaliste de Louvain 10. Louvain: Catholic University of Louvain,
Institut Orientaliste.
—— (1982) Église géorgienne des origines au moyen age. Bedi Kartlisa 40: 186–99.
Gabashvili, T. (2001) Pilgrimage to Mount Athos, Constantinople, and Jerusalem 1755–1759, trans. and
with commentary by M. Ebanoidze and J. Wilkinson. Richmond, UK: Curzon/Caucasus World.
Garsoïan, N. G. (1996) Iran and Caucasia. In R. G. Suny (ed.) Transcaucasia, Nationalism, and
Social Change: Essays in the History of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, rev. edn. Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press.
—— (1999) L’Église arménienne et le grand schisme d’orient. Corpus Scriptorum Christanorum
Orientalium 574, subsidia 100. Louvain: Peeters.
Garsoïan, N. G. and Martin-Hisard, B. (1996) Unité et diversité de la Caucasie médiévale (IVe–XIe
s.). In Il Caucaso: Cerniera fra Culture dal Mediterraneo alla Persia. Settimane di Studio del Centro
Italiano di Studi Sull’alto Medioevo 43a. Spoleto: Presso la Sede del Centro.
Gordeziani, R. (ed.) (2004) K‘ristianobis 20 saukune sak‘art‘veloshi (20 Centuries of Christianity
in Georgia). T‘bilisi: Logosi.
Khrushkova, L. G. (2002) Rannekhristianskie pamiatniki Vostochnogo Prichernomor’ia (IV–VII
veka) (The Early Christian Monuments of the Eastern Littoral of the Black Sea, 4th–7th
Centuries). Moscow: Nauka.
Lang, D. M. (1955) St. Euthymius the Georgian and the Barlaam and Iosasph Romance. Bulletin
of the School of Oriental and African Studies 17: 306–25.
—— (1957) The Last Years of the Georgian Monarchy 1658–1832. New York: Columbia Univer-
sity Press.
—— (1962) A Modern History of Soviet Georgia. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press.
—— (1976) Lives and Legends of the Georgian Saints, 2nd rev. edn. Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s
Seminary Press.
—— (1983) Iran, Armenia, and Georgia. In The Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 3.1 (pp. 505–36).
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Melia, E. (1971) The Georgian Orthodox Church. In R. H. Marshall, Jr. (ed.) Aspects of Religion
in the Soviet Union, 1917–1967. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Mgaloblishvili, T‘. (1991) Klarjuli mravalt‘avi (The Klarjet‘ian Polycephalon). T‘bilisi: Mec‘niereba.
Rapp, S. H., Jr. (2003) Studies in Medieval Georgian Historiography: Early Texts and Eurasian Con-
texts. Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 601, subsidia 113. Louvain: Peeters.
Rapp, S. H., Jr. and Crego, P. C. (2006) The Conversion of K‘art‘li: The Shatberdi Variant, Kek.Inst.
S-1141. Le Muséon 119(1–2): 169–225.
Suny, R. G. (1994) The Making of the Georgian Nation, rev. edn. Bloomington: Indiana University
Press.
Thomson, R. W. (1996) Rewriting Caucasian History: The Medieval Armenian Adaptation of the
Georgian Chronicles, the Original Georgian Texts and the Armenian Adaptation. Oxford: Clarendon
Press.
Toumanoff, C. (1963) Studies in Christian Caucasian History. Washington, DC: Georgetown
University Press.
Xint‘ibidze (Khintibize), E. (1996) Georgian–Byzantine Literary Contacts. Amsterdam: Adolf M.
Hakkert.

001. High-quality, detailed, relief map of roads (automobile and rail) of Georgia, with the indication of tunnels

002. the map of road and railroad

003. Road and railroad of Georgia

004. Road, railroad and airoport of Georgia

005. Scheme of the Transcaucasian Railway

006. Map of Georgia Railways

007. Map of highways and highways of Georgia

008. The maps of Georgia regions

009. The maps of Georgia regions - Abkhazia

010. The maps of Georgia regions - Adjaria

011. The maps of Georgia regions - Guria

012. The maps of Georgia regions - Imereti

013. The maps of Georgia regions - Kakheti

014. The maps of Georgia regions - Kvemo Kartli

015. The maps of Georgia regions - Mtskheta-Mtianeti

016. The maps of Georgia regions - Racha-Lechkhumi & Kvemo Svaneti

017. The maps of Georgia regions - Samegrelo & Zemo Svaneti

018. The maps of Georgia regions - Samtskhe-Javakheti

019. The maps of Georgia regions - Shida Kartli

020. Archive with a set of detailed maps of the administrative regions, autonomous republics and historical regions of Georgia - Guria

021. Archive with a set of detailed maps of the administrative regions, autonomous republics and historical regions of Georgia - Imereti

022. Archive with a set of detailed maps of the administrative regions, autonomous republics and historical regions of Georgia - Kakheti

023. Archive with a set of detailed maps of the administrative regions, autonomous republics and historical regions of Georgia - Kartli

024. Archive with a set of detailed maps of the administrative regions, autonomous republics and historical regions of Georgia - Adjara

025. Archive with a set of detailed maps of the administrative regions, autonomous republics and historical regions of Georgia - Pshavi

026. Archive with a set of detailed maps of the administrative regions, autonomous republics and historical regions of Georgia - Racha

027. Archive with a set of detailed maps of the administrative regions, autonomous republics and historical regions of Georgia - South Georgia

028. Archive with a set of detailed maps of the administrative regions, autonomous republics and historical regions of Georgia - Svaneti

029. A map of Colchis, Iberia, Albania and the neighbouring countries

030. Map of Georgia

Giuli Alasania, Prof. Dr., Vice-Rector, International Black Sea University
IBSU International Refereed Multi-diciplinary Scientific Journal; Vol 1, No 1 (2006); 117-129.

Abstract
The paper traces history of spreading Christianity in Georgia since the 1st century AD, showing its significance for making the Georgian nation. Based on historic sources the story includes the legends linked to the process. Taking into consideration scholarly literature the paper dates proclaiming Christianity in Georgia back to 326, considering the issue of autocephalous movement of the Georgian Church. History of the Georgian Church embraces contribution of the leaders in the different times.
Keywords: Christianity, Church, autocephaly, martyr, integrity, nation, state.


At the end of the first millennium B.C. the Savior, Son of God, Jesus Christ born of the Virgin Mary, a descendant of the Jewish King David, was sent to humankind. Christ was baptized by John the Baptist in the river Jordan. But the Jewish people failed to acknowledge him, they did not believe in his divine origin, and the clergymen sentenced him to death with the approval of the Roman governor Pilate. On the third day after the crucifixion and death Christ resurrected.

Georgia had also been awaiting a Savior-Messiah. The book of Nebrot which the first Georgian King Mirian had, reads: "On the very last day there will come the owner of heaven to see you suffering in grief and will save you" [1]. According to the Georgian historical tradition, Holy Fathers from Georgia Elioz Mtskheteli and Longinoz Karsneli, being invited to Jerusalem, witnessed the Crucifixion of the Lord. The Crucifixion was rather difficult for Elioz's mother to bear. Elioz's sister died in Mtskheta while holding Christ's tunic and was buried with the relic [2]. Today, the place remains in the foundation of the Svetitskhoveli (“life-giving pillar”) Church. Referring to historical sources, it is to be noted that the great relic of the Old Testament, Prophet Ilia's mantle was also kept in Mtskheta, and Khobi monastery kept the Virgin's robe, which is now protected and kept in the Museum of Zugdidi. According to the Christian ecclesiastical tradition, the Tsilkani Church had an icon of the Mother of God created by Luke the Evangelist. Today it is kept in Georgia in the National Museum of Art.

Christianity spread in Georgia in the 1st century A.D. After the Ascension the Apostles cast lots as to who would preach Christianity in the countries. Georgia was the Holy Virgin's lot, for which reason we call. Georgia "Khvtismshoblis tsilkhvedri", which means “destined to Theotokos”. But obeying her Son's will, the Holy Virgin sent Andrew the First-Called. To Georgia. The Holy Virgin gave him her divine icon. This icon is known as Atskuri Virgin's icon and is kept in the National Museum of Art. Simeon the Cananite and Matthias came to Georgia together with Andrew the First-Called. The first episcopacy in Georgia was established by Andrew the First-Called in Atskuri; he also assigned the first bishop, several priests and a deacon.

The church founded by the Apostles should have been autocephalous, which means “sovereign”. This notwithstanding, the autocephaly of the Georgian Church has always been a disputable issue causing many difficulties, and it had to be proved by different scholars throughout its history.

The Apostle Andrew visited Georgia three times. His third journey was particularly interesting as he was accompanied by Christ's disciples: the Apostles Simon the Cananite and Matthias. The Apostle Andrew came to “Trapzon, the country of Megrels”. When the apostles came to the town-fortress Apsaros (at present, Gonio), Matthias died and was buried there. At the place where the icon of the Mother of God was given some rest, a spring sparkled itself out of the ground. Later on, the Holy Virgin Church was built there and the first copy of the icon of the Mother of God was deposited there. Simon the Cananite died in Abkhazia. His grave is in "Nikopsia", Nova Mikhailovka, to the north-west of Tuapse. In the 14th-15th centuries the remains of Simon the Cananite were reburied in Anakopia, presently located in New Athon.

Notwithstanding the signs of the first Christian communities and shrines found in the areas, which testify to the existence of religion and christening in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, Christianity was not an official state religion in Georgia until the 4th century. Escavated ruins of a church in Nastagisi dated from the 3rd century shed light on the appearance of a new religion in the territory.

The last persecution of Christians started during the reign of Caesar Diocletian (284-305), when the Commander of the Roman Army George of Cappadocia was tortured and canonized. There are many churches built and sanctified in the name of St. George in Georgia.

In 298, under a treaty concluded by Rome and Sassanid Persia in Nissibin, the Kartli Kingdom appeared to be under the Roman political control enabling the authorities to acknowledge Christianity. King Mirian is the first Christian king, and a preacher of that time is Nino of Cappadocia, whose father was Zabilon, a well-known Roman commander, and whose mother was Susana, the sister of the bishop of Jerusalem. Nino is one of those who escaped from Diocletian to find a shelter in Armenia. The Armenian king Trdat sentenced to death those women who were devoted to Christ. Nino was among them, but she was saved by God's will and sent to Kartli, since God told her that “there was a lot to reap, but few workers” [3].

The Georgian historic literature confirms the fact that St. Nino came to Kartli in 303-311. Near Lake Paravani she had a vision in her dream: “a man gave her a sealed book and told her to give it to a pagan king of Mtskheta”. Later Nino settled in Mtskheta preaching Christianity and healing insane and suffering people. Among her first listeners and followers was the queen of Kartli Nana, who had been cured from an incurable disease by St. Nino.

In 313, the Edict of Milan ceased persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire, and Christianity gained equal rights alongside pagan beliefs. In 324 Christianity became the state religion by the order of Constantine the Great (306-337).

There is certain evidence to prove that Georgians were involved in the creation of the Christian creed. Bishop Stratophilus of Bichvinta attended the first Ecumenical Council held in Nicea and the Bishop of Kartli Pantophilus attended the second Ecumenical Council. The Christian churches in Bichvinta, Nokalakevi built in the 4th century in western Georgia also attest to the spreading of Christian religion in southern and eastern Black Sea regions.

There are many oral versions and texts connected with declaring Christianity as an official state religion in Georgia. One of them tells of solar eclipse when King Mirian was hunting on Tkhoti Mountain and was only saved after mentioning Nino's God. This led to the establishing Christianity as the official state religion in Kartli, and later on in Egrisi (Lazica) in the same year. This decision for Georgia, situated at the crossroads between the West and the East, implied taking political orientation towards the West, while two strong superpowers, Rome and Sassanid Persia, were rivaling for world domination. The decision determined Georgia's further fate and strongly tied the Georgian people and the Georgian culture to western civilization. Kartli started building churches and initially masons from the Roman Empire were invited. Constantine the Great, the Roman Emperor, sent to Georgia not only priests, deacons and stone masters led by Bishop John, but he also sent to the Georgian king a fragment of the cross, a piece of footboard and nails on which Christ was crucified. Because of their special importance, many kings contributed significantly in keeping there holy relics or taking them to another place, maintaining or getting them back.

A wooden church constructed in the king's garden, which was later called “Svetitskhoveli” (“the life-giving pillar”), was meant to be a principall church in Georgia.

Kartli declared Christianity as the state religion in 326. However, the christening of Georgia was a fairly long process. The Georgian Church is inseparable from the world church, and all Christians are one whole, one spiritual body with Christ as the head, “one body and one spirit, one God, one faith, one baptism, one Lord and a Father of all”.

Bishop John baptized Kartli's noblemen at a special place on the bank of the Mtkvari river. Common people were christened down the river by priests and deacons. St. Nino, Bishop John and lords were baptizing people in different parts of Georgia showing them the “true way” with the “New Testament and the Holy Cross”. Finally, St. Nino settled in Bodbe, where she became fatally ill and died. Before her death she told everything about her life to Mirian's daughter-in-law, the wife of Revi, Salome Ujarmeli, and Perozhavr Sivnieli. Their accounts of the events together with the narrations of Abiatari and Sydonia became the basis for the “Life of St. Nino”, one of ancient texts about the conversion of Kartli. The “Life of St. Nino” written by her contemporaries was included in the book series the “Conversion of Kartli”, compiled in the 7th century, and in the “Life of Kartli”.

By the decision made at the Ecumenical Council in 451 in Chalcedon, five churches - Roman, Constantinepolian, Antiochean, Alexandrian and Jerusalem remained autocephalous. The Church of Kartli constituted a part of the Antiochean patriarchate. Before that in 381, Pantophilus from Iberia (ibid. Kartli) attending the Ecumenical Council is mentioned as a representative of the Amasian diocese. Proceeding from that, it is believed that the Church of Kartli was subordinated to the Diocese of Pontus with the help of the Amasian Metropolitan by the end of the 4th century [5].

In the second half of the 5th century the Church of Kartli rose and became stronger. This fact is connected with the name of the most powerful king, Vakhtang Gorgasali.

Since the majority of Kartli was under political control of Persia, “fire-worshiping was spread among common people”. King Vakhtang Gorgasali started his reign by carrying out reforms in church. He chose pro-western orientation and gained for the Church of Kartli the status of autocephaly.

There were two opposing strands in Christianity: Diophysitism (acknowledging dual nature of Christ - divine and human) and Monophisitism (acknowledging only divine nature of Christ). In 451, the Chalcedonian 4th Ecumenical Council accepted Diophysitical dogma and rejected Monophysitism.

After Mobidan who was secretly writing “wrong books”, Chalcedonite Michael sent from Byzantium was appointed the Archbishop of Kartli and he strived to eliminate the influence of Persian beliefs. Since King Vakhtang Gorgasali of Kartli visited Jerusalem together with his mother and sister, later on established the institution of Catholicos in Kartli, and decided to bring Peter as Catholicos and Samuel as Archbishop from Constantinople, the insulted and disobedient Michael was sent to Constantinople.

According to the “Life of Kartli”, King Vakhtang established many new bishoprics and assigned “one bishop in Klarjeti in the church of Akhizi, one in Artaani, in Erusheti, one in Javakheti, in Tsunda, one in Manglisi, one in Bolnisi, one in Rustavi, in Ninotsminda, Ujarmiskari, Cheremi - built by Gorgasali, one in Cheleti, one in Khornabuji, one in Agaraki (Khunani) and one in Nikozi, with an assigned bishop” [6].

In the earlier half of the 6th century, after Saba was appointed as Catholicos in Kartli, the cathedral of Catholicos was always served by priests of the Georgian origin. According to the “Conversion of Kartli”, “after that, two families, natives from Mtskheta succeeded to the throne of Catholicos”. Georgian chronicler Juansher also testifies: “Since then they did not bring a Catholicos from Greece, but Georgian nobles were assigned to it” [7].

Since the second decade of the 6th century, the Church of Kartli refuses to have any conciliatory position towards Monophysitism and steadily insists on having Diophysitism acknowledged. The latter occurred in the 591, after concluding a treaty between Byzantium and Iran. Under that treaty, the larger part of Kartli up to Tbilisi came under the control of Byzantium. Despite the fact that Persia and Byzantium formally divided Kartli into two parts, Stephanoz of Tbilisi being Guaram's son, considered they were entitled to ruling both parts of the country. Meanwhile, favorable conditions were created for the followers of Christianity. The Jvari (Cross) Monastery in Mtskheta built in the late 6th early 7th century furnishes a good example.

The 7th century started with a complete split of the Georgian and Armenian Churches. In the early 7th century, Abraham, the Catholicos of Armenia wrote to the Catholicos of Kartli “We hardly believe in devoted love to Byzantium from a slave of the king of kings as well as in his separating from Persia having the same faith” [8].

Ecclesiastical policy in Georgia was part of the Near East policy. The main political sides of those days were Byzantium and Persia. In 614, the Persian King Chosroes II sacked Jerusalem, and in 616 convened an ecclesiastical meeting where he obliged the Christian residents of the Empire to “adopt Armenian Christianity”. The Catholicos of Kartli Kirion was compelled to leave Kartli.

Shortly after, international situation changed in favor of Byzantium. However, Emperor Heraclius seeking to spare his empire from dividing, tried to spread a new course of “Monothelitism” that recognized Christ's dual nature Divine and Human, but one will of God. That was a step towards a compromise between Monophysitism and Dyophysitism. In the third decade of the 7th century, Heraclius joined western Kartli. In western Georgia, in the Greek Metropolis of Phasis and some other bishoprics subordinated to it, the Divine Service was conducted in the Greek language.

The new course appeared to be unacceptable for many people. Among the opposition there was Pope Martini and a monk from Byzantium, a well-known theologian Maxim the Confessor who, mute and crippled, was exiled together with his two disciples to western Georgia where he died. A letter, sent from western Georgia by his disciple, shows that Monotheitism was alien and unacceptable to
the native people and they sympathized greatly with the persecuted. The Georgian Church was the only one among Eastern Christian Churches that did not share the iconoclasm waged during the reign of Leon III the Isaurian in Byzantium. It was rejected and condemned by the 7th and the last Ecumenical Council in Nicea. All this proves that by that time the Georgian society already had profound and unique religious traditions. As a prominent Georgian scholar George the Athonite living in the 11th century writes about the firm determination of the Georgian Church to stick to the initial orientation taken by the church: “since we once believed were deviated neither to the right, nor to the left” [9].

In the mid -7th century Christianity faced a new threat. A new religion, Islam, was on the rise in the Arabian Peninsula. Since that period Kartli found itself under the political control of Arabs which grew more severe with time. One of such periods can be found in the seventh decade of the 8th century, when an Emir appeared in Tbilisi and the future of Georgia's rich and original national culture was put into question. A Georgian chronicler bewails with grief from remote centuries: “Many of those who betrayed Christ were tempted and misled from the Path of the Truth, some by force and lies, others by inexperience of adolescence and evil doing”. But culture, carried through centuries, turned out to be strong, endured hard trials and survived. The majority of Georgians “remain devoted to the only begotten Son of God with love and fear to Christ, responsibility to the motherland, with patience to grief and sorrows,” - declares Ioane Sabanisdze proudly [10].

In the fourth decade of the 8th century the Church of Kartli sent representatives to Antioch. Their main aim was to settle the matter of autocephaly of the Church of Kartli. Antiochean patriarch Theopilakte once again canonized the Georgian Bishop's right to sanctify the Catholicos of Kartli. Until the 9th century, Eastern Churches as well as Kartli got the chrism from Jerusalem. In the 9th century the Church of Kartli, owing to the endeavors by an apprentice of Grigol Khandzteli, Bishop of Atskveri Ephrem, was given the right by the Patriarch of Jerusalem to prepare chrism in Georgia. So, the Bishop of Kartli was equalized with the world's five Patriarchs those of Rome, Jerusalem, Alexandria, Antioch, and Constantinople. The deed of 1259 testified to that effect, and was signed as follows: “We, the 6th Patriarch of Svetitshkoveli and Catholicos of All Georgia by Christ Nicolos, affirm and sign” [11]. Until the 11th century the head of the Georgian Orthodox Church was called “Kartli Catholicos” (“Mtskheta Catholicos”). Since the 11th century its synonyms “Patriarch of All Georgia” or “Great Patron” have been used, or “Catholicos-Patriarch of Georgia”, the latter was first used to mention Melcisedek I (1010-1033).

By the end of the 8th century Leon II, the ruler of Abkhazia detached from political control of Byzantium and received the title of the King of Abkhazia. After the unification of Western Georgia the Kingdom of Abkhazia covered the territory from Nikopsia to the Likhi (Surami) range. Kutaisi becomes the capital of the new state, and Georgian acquired the status of the state language. In the battles for the unification of Georgia Abkhazian kings tried to annex Inner Kartli, Kakheti and Hereti. Javakheti was part of the Kingdom as well.

In 978 Bagrat III, the heir of the title “King of Kartvels (Georgians)” from his paternal line and a descendant of Abkhazian kings from his maternal line, was enthroned in Kutaisi. The Georgian State, united during his reign, maintained the name of the “Kingdom of Abkhazia” for a long time. It was gradually replaced by the term “Sakartvelo” (Georgia). Following the unification of Georgia, the titles of kings were changed: “King of Abkhazians, Kartvels (Georgians), Rans and Kakhs”. Tbilisi Emirate and Tashir-Dzorageti Georgian Kingdom with the Armenian dynasty were left beyond the country's borders.

Kings of Abkhazia united the Church of Western Georgia, the centers of which were the Metropolitan see of Nikopsia, Sebastopolis and Phasis, with the autocephalous Abkhazian Church and became independent of the Patriarch of Constantinople, but later on, it was subordinated to the Catholicos of Mtskheta. In the second decade of the 10th century George II spread the influence of the
Georgian Church over the Northern Caucasus (Kingdom of Alans). During the reign of Bagrat III Bedia and Kutaisi Cathedrals were built. The latter is known today as the Bagrati Cathedral. The Metropolitan see of Phasis that was dependent on Constantinople and Episcopacy thrones of Rodopolis were abolished. The Western Georgian Church that according to hierarchy was subdued to the Catholicos of Georgia replaced the Greek language with Georgian in divine service. Since the Cathedral of the Abkhazian Catholicos was in Bichvinta, he was called “Catholicos of Bichvinta” as well. Until the second half of the 15th century the Abkhazian Catholicos was in fact the Bishop of Abkhazia. In the 10th century, Giorgi Merchule once again confirms the rule adopted by the 4th Ecumenical Council, according to which ecclesiastical borders have to be the same as the state borders with only one difference: in this case the union of church preceded and speeded up the political unification of the country: “The very country in which liturgy (mass) and all prayers are delivered in Georgian is considered to be Kartli” [12].

Ecclesiastic tradition narrates about the divine origin of royal Bagrationi Dynasty, considering it to be the descendant of Prophet David. The related evidence is preserved in Byzantine chronicle by Constantine Porphirogenetes, while Grigol Khandtsteli addresses Ashot the Curopalates with the following words: “Me Lord, the son of Prophet David sanctified by God” [13].

The Georgians made their contribution to the world's cultural treasury. In the churches and monasteries founded by them, apart from religious services they performed national and cultural activities, created original works, translated theological literature written in different languages. Thanks to Georgian monks, many works in other languages whose originals have been lost are only known due to the Georgian translations. Georgian ecclesiastics loved the Holy lands, where they had closer relations with the world's church and ecclesiastical world. The first Georgian monasteries appeared in Egypt and Palestine in the 4th-5th centuries. About 100 large and small Georgian monasteries are mentioned in historic sources in different periods both in Georgia and beyond.

The legend has it that the first Christian King Mirian chose the location of the Cross Monastery while being a pilgrim in Jerusalem. In the course of centuries St. Sava Monastery built near Jerusalem became famous for its literary and logical-philosophical traditions. In this very monastery the Georgian translation of biblical books, so called Sabatsminduri was made, and the ancient Georgian Typikon was created in the 8th and 9th centuries. Also some other monasteries made a name for themselves such as: Palavra, Jerusalem Cross Monastery and cloisters founded near Antioch or in Asia Minor. Among the Georgian religious centers of the West Athos (10th century) and Petritsoni (11th century) monasteries gained special fame. Georgian monasteries abroad were centers bringing together the Georgians living outside their homeland, and monks staying there were ambassadors of their country. Their main purpose was to serve the Georgian culture and the Georgian language. On the one hand, cloisters founded by them strongholds of Christianity were part of a larger world; on the other hand, they were indivisible from Georgia, a sort of smaller Georgia, that always had tight bonds with the motherland. Everyday prayers delivered by the monks in Palestine in the 9th and 10th centuries clearly shows close links of the Georgian centers abroad to their motherland as well as their main destination: “Let's pray to God, for peace in Kartli, the keeping of borders, calming down the kings and rulers, repelling the enemies, releasing the captives, passing away of the plague, steadiness of Christianity...Oh, Christ, forgive all brothers, and all Christians, and most of all, the Georgians” [14].

First monasteries in Georgia appeared during the reign of King Vakhtang Gorgasali. He ordered to build the monastery of Opiza near Artanuji. In mid 5th century Tana (or Ateni) Monastery already existed. In Georgia as well as in other places there existed friaries and nunneries.

Monastery building in Eastern Georgia began when Syrian Fathers came to the country. According to the literature, “Assyrian Fathers” were Georgians and spoke Georgian. They initiated building of Davidgareji, Dodorka, John the Baptist, Zedazeni, Ulumba, Shiomghvime, Martkopi, Alaverdi, Stephantsminda, Breti, Khirsi, Samtavisi, Ikalto and other monasteries. In the 7th-8th centuries monastery building and restoring took place in Klarjeti, Tao and Kartli. “Klarjeti Archimandrity”, where the first Archimandrite was Grigol Khandzteli, was also founded during that period; other famous centers and monasteries: Zarzma, Khandzta, Shatberdi, Nedzvi, Kviriketsminda, Tskarostavi, Breta, Meresi, Old Opiza, Midznadzori were founded as well. Monasteries were built also by the kings or they took them into their possession. In the 12th century Shiomghvime, Davidgareji monasteries were taken into the royal possession. Gelati Monastery was built in the 12th century, as “another Jerusalem of the whole East”, or “another Athens”. It sent to the world a new message of the empowered Georgia - to replace the weakening Byzantium.

There are also a number of cave monasteries, like Davidgareji, Vardzia, and Vahani in Georgia.

The beginnings of the written tradition in the Georgian language are connected with Christianity. The rich hagiographic literature in the Georgian language already existed in the 4th-5th centuries. Other genres of Christian writing developed as well: Homiletic, Hymnography. Collections, lectionaries, chant appeared. Ecclesiastical architecture with its own traditions emerged. Originally, basilica-type buildings and especially three-nave basilica were widespread, but later, the so-called cross-domed-type edifices, the finest examples of which are: the Cross (Jvari) cathedral (6th-7th centuries); in the 7th-8th centuries similar cathedrals of Tsromi, Atenis Sioni, Old Shuamta in Kakheti, Chkondidi in Samegrelo and others emerge. Churches and monasteries were furnished with ornaments, frescos, wall painting. Ecclesiastic law developed, based on the “Short Version Nome canon” and “Great Nome canon”. The former was compiled by Ekvtime the Athonite. The latter was translated from Greek by Arsen of Ikalto in the second half of the 11th century.

Splitting up into Catholic and Orthodox churches was not immediately recognized by Georgians. About 1065, Giorgi Mtatsmindeli made the following comment concerning the ecclesiastic discord between Rome and Constantinople: “As heresy has occurred so many times among Greeks…. Holy councils among ecclesiastic leaders were summoned and this issue was thoroughly investigated…but Khroms (i.e. the western church), once they acknowledged God, they have never deviated from this faith and they have never practiced heresy…” [16]. At that time, political and spiritual unification of the Caucasus was on the agenda in Georgia. In the 1th-13th centuries, during the reign of Bagrat IV, David the Builder and Tamar, the church councils were convened with the purpose of unification of the Georgian and Armenian churches. Christianity still remained the axis which unified even politically antagonistic sides. Liparit Baghvashi, Bagrat IV's rival, rendered financial assistance to Giorgi Mtatsmindeli who was working on a new version of the Gospel's translation in the Georgian monastery on Athos, and later assisted in dissemination of this translation in Georgian monasteries.

David the Builder, the unifier of the country, started his activities with the church reform. Ruisi-Urbnisi church council held under King David was an important step towards the country's centralization. The council purged the clerical hierarchy, expelled the “unworthy” holding high positions due to their noble origin. According to the Nome canon's principles, he cancelled titles and personal virtues came to the fore. Byzantine Queen Martha, David's aunt was present at the meeting and that stressed its international importance. Being faithful to traditions, Georgian kings took great care of Georgian churches and monasteries and “Prayers were ceaselessly delivered” in the Palace Church. In spite of obstacles and impediments, the Georgians not only retained their centers abroad, but they also enjoyed certain privileges. According to Jack de Vitry, Akra Latin Bishop (1216-1228), “the Georgians, visiting Sepulcher, enter the holy city with unfolded banners paying tribute to nobody”; in 1347 “the Georgians have the key to the Holy Sepulcher, and they won't let anybody have the smallest piece of the grave-stone even for much money.” According to the information dated 1483, “Many Georgians live in Jerusalem and own plenty of holy sites…They set off to Jerusalem with unfolded banners and returned to Georgia without paying any tribute” [17].

The Georgian Church survived 100-years domination of Mongols, devastating invasions of Timur-Lang, Kara-koyunlu and Ak-koyunlu. Each time of destroying was followed by building and restoration first of all of the churches and monasteries. The Georgians gave the King Alexandre reigned after Timur-Lang the name “the Great” for such activity.

In 1453, the fall of Constantinople and Byzantium, emergence of a neighboring Moslem Ottoman and later Safavid states and political disintegration of Georgia did great harm to the country's spiritual unity. Georgia became surrounded by the powerful Muslim countries. A new stage of struggle for the survival started. The Samtskhe leaders took steps to have the Meskheti church seceded from the mother church. The Antioch and Jerusalem patriarchs, on the other hand, tried to separate Western Georgian and Meskheti churches from the Georgian Church. Such an attempt failed. The Meskheti bishops were forced to take the oath: ”Neither to let in the foreign ecclesiastic nor to read their books, nor to listen to their commandment, nor to believe in their faith. Our clergy and deacons must be ordained only in Mtskheta and we must obey your orders” [18].

The 17th century was distinguished with the plentitude of Christian martyrs, only a few of whom were canonized: in 1616, 6000 martyrs were massacred in David Gareji desert, the Georgian King Luarsab II was executed in 1622, the Kakhetian Queen St. Ketevan was martyred 1624, the Kherkheulidze nine brothers together with their mother and sister and 9000 Georgians were killed on Marabda battlefield in 1625, St. Father Evdemoz the Patriarch, head of the Georgian Church, was martyred in 1624, Bidzina Cholokashvili, Elizbar and Shalva Ksani Eristavis (dukes) and many others were also martyred. Those martyrs personified the Georgian nation, exemplifying heroism and firmness. In those centuries as never before, fighting for being Christian meant fighting for
being Georgian.

By the fourth decade of the 18th century, there were only a few functioning episcopates in Kartli-Kakheti, but none of them were in Meskheti. Starting from 1633 Iranian Shah's Viceroy-Muslim Vali ascended to the Georgian throne. However, according to the Georgian sources, he was called the King in an old manner. The fact of the assassination of King Giorgi XI by the Afghans, attests to the Georgians' loyalty towards Christian traditions. The Georgian King was wearing a cross on his chest. That very cross was sent to the Iranian Shah by the rebelled Afghan leader as accusatory evidence. Such a situation lasted until 1744, when Georgians regained the right to consecrate kings according to the Christian rule. During those hard times the Georgian Church continued to function and to unite the nation. Although in conditions of the country's decentralization, the united patriarchate disintegrated into two separate ones- Abkhazian and Kartlian, the perception of unity was not eradicated. In the fourth decade of the 18th century Vakhushti Bagrationi stresses: “If you ask any Georgian, that is Imeri, Meskhi and Her-Kakh, what their origin is, they will reply instantaneously: “Georgian” [19]. This is the period when faith determines ethnicity and the words “Georgian” and “Orthodox” become synonymous. The care for culture and education was continuous. The new cathedrals were built: Ananuri, the so-called Magalaant Towers (in Kavturi Valley), the Mchadijvari church (1668), the Anchiskhati bell-tower in Tbilisi (1675). In Georgia and beyond its borders printing-houses were set up, where Georgian books were published, hagiography revived and the cultural-educational activities of the churches and monasteries were revitalized. Affinity to one religion was a determining factor in search for allies. A vain quest for an ally in the West throughout the 18th century by the orientation towards Orthodox Russia
came to an end.

In 1783 the treaty of Georgievsk, signed between Russia and Georgia, actually laid the foundation for the abolition of the Georgian Church's independence, which can be inferred from the following statements of the document: “… After the unification with Russia and the Russians, our coreligionists, His Excellency wishes that the Catholicos, i.e. the Archbishop occupies the eighth place on the hierarchal scale of Russian bishops after Tobolsk” [20].
 
In 1801, the Russian King annexed Georgia's centuries-old statehood on the basis of a manifesto. The Russian troops occupied the country. Conquest of Georgia by Russians started. In 1811, with the decision of the Emperor and Russia's Holy Synod the Georgian Apostolic Church's autocephaly was annulled. In 1814 this misfortune befell the Western Georgian Church. By that time out of thirteen eparchies functioning in Eastern Georgia, two were left, and in Western Georgia out of twelve eparchies three were left. Russia actively launched its Russification policy. In existing ecclesiastical schools the language of instruction was Russian. The authorities tried to use Orthodox Christianity as a means for assimilating the Georgians into the Russian nation.

The struggle for the restoration of the Georgian Church's autocephaly continued all through the 19th century and was crowned with success in the 20th century. A Georgian noble's letter addressed to the Russian Emperor dated 11 October 1905, reads: “During the centuries the Georgians moaned under the inexorable yoke of the rules of the Eastern countries. They endured cruelty.
Nevertheless, the Iveri Church was invincible and viable, its spirit was powerful and its strength unconquerable … Now the Georgian Orthodox Church should be given a free life and the legal authorities should take their positions again and the Catholicos elected by the people should be restored in his rights and responsibilities …” [21].

In spite of the obstacles, after the Russian Revolution in February 1917, the Georgian clergy managed to restore the Georgian Church's autocephaly on 12 March. Georgian was adopted as the language of the divine service. However, with the intervention of the Russian Provisional Government, it was settled to lend autocephaly to the Georgian Church according to the ethnicity, not territory. Non-Georgian churches remained under the Russian rule. And still it was a victory. Georgian Catholicos-Patriarch Kirion Sadzaglishvili, addressed the Georgian nation with the following words: “It is our church's duty to remind humanity of the name of the Georgian nation. It should contribute to our consolidation and unification” [22].

During the years of the Democratic Republic (1918-21) the Georgian Social-Democratic government came to recognize the call of the time that implied the speeding up of the secularization. On 17 July, 1920 the ecclesiastical council considered the issues of the secession of the church from the state, the transference of the ecclesiastical schools to the ministry, the church budget, the conditions of life of the clergy and the unification of Mtsketa and Tbilisi Eparchies.

On 25 February 1921 the Bolshevik Red Army annexed Georgia. As a response, Ambrosi Khelaia, the Georgian Patriarch, sent a memorandum to the “Genoese Conference”. The leader of the Georgian Church brought to the world's attention that “the Georgian nation was deprived of the mother tongue and its ancestral national culture and religious belief were profaned” and demanded that “the Russian military occupation be withdrawn from Georgia immediately” [23]. But his voice as well as numerous pleas addressed to the authorities went unheard and remained unanswered. The Orthodox Patriarchates did not recognize the Georgian Church's autocephaly and it was considered as an integral part of the Russian Church. This situation continued until 1943. By that time the number of the functioning churches was reduced to 15. In World War II, activities undertaken by the Georgian Church in support of the fighting nation had its effect. Those efforts were not left unnoticed and owing to the diplomatic talent and relentless work of the Georgian Catholicos-Patriarch Kalistrate Tsintsadze, in 1943 the Russian Church officially recognized the territorial autocephaly announced by the Georgian Orthodox Church on 12 March, 1917 [24]. The struggle started for the restoration of the cancelled churches and monasteries and for recovering holy relics. But the persecution of the Georgian churches was not over and it continued after Stalin's death. Despite repressions, in 1917-78 the Georgian clergy held 12 ecclesiastical councils.

On 23 December, 1977, Ilia II (Shiolashvili-Ghudushauri), the Metropolitan of Tskum-Abkhazeti was elected as Catholicos-Patriarch in Tbilisi. Owing to his endeavors the Georgian Church's long autocephalous movement crowned with success. On 25 January, 1990, The World Patriarch in Constantinople issued the deed of the Georgian Church's autocephaly, and on 3 March published the document recognizing the title of the Georgian Church's Catholicos-Patriarch.

Today, there are 35 eparchies and about 700 active churches and monasteries in Georgia. The Georgian polyphonic chanting is restored in the Georgian Church. The Concordat between the state and the church is achieved.

On 9 April, 1991, Georgia regained political independence. The independent Georgian state started working towards establishing a respectable place in the world community. We have a long way to go. We hope that the obstacles along the way of developing our state will be overcome, in the first place, due to the Georgian Autocephalous Church. This is the very church that helped the Georgians to retain their national integrity. Even in times of hardship and misfortune the reputation of the nation was impeccable. “Clergy supported faith by motherland and nationality, motherland and nationality by faith, and thus empowered the nation led by the Holy Trinity,... saving the house and Georgian
self-consciousness to Georgia” (Ilia Chavchavadze).


References:

[1] Kartlis Tskhovreba (History of Kartli), edited by I. Antelava and N. Shoshiashvili. Tbilisi, 1996, p. 107 (Georgian).
[2] Ibid, p.102-103.
[3] Ibid, p.93.
[4] Ibid, p.94.
[5] Mamulia Giorgi. The Kartlian Church in the 5th-6th centuries, Tbilisi, 1992, p. 94-95 (Georgian).
[6] KTs., p. 178.
[7] Conversion of Kartli, translated from Georgian by E. Takaishvili, edited by M. Chkhartishvili, Tbilisi, 1989, 29) (Russian); KTs., p. 184.
[8] Ukhtanesi. History of separation of Iberia from Armenia. Armenian text translated and edited by Z. Aleksidze, Tbilisi, 1975, p.5 (Georgian).
[9] Japaridze Anania. History of Apostolic Church of Georgia. Georgian ecclesiastic calendar, Tbilisi, 1998, p. 147. (Georgian).
[10] Ioanne Sabanisdze. Martyrdom of Abo Tbileli. Georgian prose, I, Tbilisi, 1982, p. 120 (Georgian).
[11] Georgian Historic Documents, Edited by T. Enukidze, V. Silogava, N. Shioshvili, Tbilisi, 1984, p. 155. (Georgian).
[12] Giorgi Merchule. Life of Grigol Khandtsteli. Georgian prose, I, Tbilisi, 1982, p. 279.
[13] Ibid, p. 235.
[14] Kekelidze K. Reflection of struggle for cultural independence in ancient Georgian literature. Tbilisi, 1949, p. 84.(Georgian).
[15] History of King of kings David. Text prepared by M. Shanidze, Tbilisi, 1992, p. 175 (Georgian).
[16] Giorgi the Junior. Life of Giorgi the Athonite. Georgian prose, p. 487.
[17] Grigol Peradze. Edited by G. Japaridze. Tbilisi, 1995., 30, 37, 46. (Georgian).
[18] Japaridze A. History of the Georgian Apostolic Church, p. 290.(Georgian)
[19] Bagrationi Vakhushti. Description of the Georgian kingdom. Edited by S. Kaukhchishvili, Tbilisi, 1973, -KTs, IV, p. 291 (Georgian).
[20] Georgievsk treaty. Edited by G. Paichadze, Tbilisi, 1983, p. 74 (Georgian, Russian).
[21] Japaridze A. Calendar of the Georgian Church, Tbilisi, 1998, p. 383. (Georgian).
[22] Ibid, p. 390.
[23] Ibid, p. 396.
[24] Vardosanidze S. Georgian Ortodox Apostolic Church in 1917-1952, Tbilisi, 2001, p. 211-212.