Archpriest Zakaria Machitadze
Saint Shalva of Akhaltsikhe was a brilliant military commander in the army of Queen Tamar and the prince of Akhaltsikhe. After his victory at Shamkori in the Ganja region, Shalva carried with him the flag of the caliph, as a sign of the invincibility of the Christian Faith, and conferred it, along with the wealth he had won, as an offering to the Khakhuli Icon of the Theotokos.
The life of St. Kaikhosro the Georgian has been passed down to our century in the works of Archbishop Timote (Gabashvili), a famous Church figure and historian of the18th century.
Saint Antimos of Iberia was one of the most highly educated people of his time. He was fluent in many languages, including Greek, Romanian, Old Slavonic, Arabic, and Turkish and well-versed in theology, literature, and the natural sciences. He was unusually gifted in the fine arts — in painting, engraving, and sculpture in particular. He was famed for his beautiful calligraphy. Finally, St. Antimos was a great writer, a renowned orator, and a reformer of the written Romanian language.
Tornike Eristavi (later Ioane of Mt. Athos) was a Georgian army commander famed for his victories in war and a favorite of King Davit Kuropalates. Eventually he abandoned his worldly glory and set off in search of his spiritual father, St. Ioane, on Mt. Olympus. There he learned that St. Ioane had moved to Mt. Athos, so he journeyed there and settled with him in a monastery headed by St. Athanasius the Athonite. He was tonsured a monk and given the new name Ioane.
Saint Tevdore was a simple priest who labored in the 16th century in the village of Kvelta. At that time the Ottoman Empire and Persia were locked in a bitter feud over control of the Near East. At the beginning of 1609 the Ottomans conquered first the city of Baghdadi, then part of Samtskhe in southern Georgia. In June of that year they launched an attack on eastern Georgia.