Archpriest Zakaria Machitadze
Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries the Dagestanis were continually raiding and pillaging the Davit-Gareji Wilderness. They destroyed churches and monasteries, stole sacred objects, and tortured and killed many of the monks who labored there.
Saint Ekvtime was abbot of the Monastery of St. John the Baptist in the Davit-GarejiWilderness. In the chronicles of the monastery he is commemorated as a “man of many labors.”
In the Feast of the Annunciation in the year 1625, the Georgians annihilated the army of the Persian shah Abbas I in the Battle of Martqopi. The victory unified Georgia’s eastern provinces of Kartli and Kakheti. It also instilled hope in other enslaved peoples of the Transcaucasus, and rebellions began to break out everywhere.
Rating: 8|Votes: 1
Saint Razhden the Protomartyr was descended from a noble Persian family. When Holy King Vakhtang Gorgasali married the daughter of the Persian king Hormuzd III Balunducht, the queen took Razhden with her to Georgia.
Rating: 2,5|Votes: 2
Arsen of Ninotsminda was an ascetic who labored in the 11th century. History tells us that he was a brilliant translator, writer, calligrapher, and theologian, and indeed one of the greatest Church figures of his time.