His Repose and Canonization

David IV’s death in 1125 — his completed will and his handing-on of the crown to his son Demetre I; his burial, in humility, at the gate of the monastery of Gelati that he had built; and his veneration by the Georgian Orthodox Church as Aghmashenebeli, the holy Builder and Restorer, with his feast kept on 26 January (8 February N.S.).

Tradition: Georgian Orthodox

The End of the Reign

David IV died on 24 January 1125, at Tbilisi, after a reign of thirty-six years (en.wikipedia.org, “David IV,” giving the death as 24 January 1125; OCA, “Blessed David IV of Georgia,” oca.org, on his death in 1125). He was in his early fifties — the sources and reference works give his age at death variously as about fifty-one to fifty-three (en.wikipedia.org gives aged 51–52; the OCA Life gives fifty-three) (en.wikipedia.org, “David IV”; OCA, “Blessed David IV,” oca.org). [Disputed: David’s exact age at death — reference sources give between about 51 and 53, reflecting the uncertainty of his birth-year (c. 1072–1073); the death-date of 1125 is secure.]

Before his death David set his house in order. He completed his testament and provided for the succession, and — in an act that echoes his father’s abdication in his own favor — he associated or handed the crown to his son and chosen heir, Demetre I, so that the transfer of power was orderly and the kingdom passed intact to the next reign (OCA, “Blessed David IV,” oca.org, on his completed will and the succession in 1125; Rayfield, Edge of Empires, 2012, on the succession of Demetre I). The near-contemporary biography presents his death as the peaceful and pious end of a great and God-favored reign — the death of a penitent king who had made his peace with God (OCA, “Blessed David IV,” oca.org, describing his peaceful repose; Life of the King of Kings David, in Kartlis Tskhovreba, ed. Metreveli, 2014).

Burial at the Gate

David was buried, according to his own wish, at his beloved Gelati (see The Monastery of Gelati) — not in a place of honor within the great church, but in the passage of the southern gate of the monastery, so that everyone entering would pass over, and tread upon, the grave of the king (OCA, “Blessed David IV,” oca.org, on the burial at the entrance to Gelati; and the Gelati site tradition, armazi.uni-frankfurt.de). His tombstone bears an inscription taken from the Psalms — rendered in the OCA Life as “This is My rest for ever and ever; here I will dwell, for I have chosen her” (cf. Psalm 131:14 LXX / 132:14), and in other renderings as “This is my rest for ever; here will I dwell, for I have desired it” (OCA, “Blessed David IV,” oca.org, citing Psalm 131; the variant rendering in the site tradition). [Disputed: the attribution of the gate-placement to David’s own express command rests on the tradition rather than an unambiguous contemporary document, and the exact translation of the Psalm-inscription varies; but the gate-tomb and its inscription are a real and ancient feature of Gelati, and the humility-motif is universally attached to it.]

The burial is the perfect close of the life this collection has traced: the Builder of Georgia, the King of Kings, the victor of Didgori, chose to lie beneath the feet of the faithful at the threshold of his own greatest work. Whatever the hard record of his kingship (see A King and a Saint), the last act he arranged was an act of self-abasement, and it is the act by which the Church most loves to remember him (Lang, Lives and Legends of the Georgian Saints, 1976).

Canonization and Veneration

David is venerated as a saint of the Georgian Orthodox Church — the “Holy and Right-Believing King David the Builder (Aghmashenebeli),” or “David the Restorer” (OCA, “Blessed David IV,” oca.org, styling him “Blessed David IV” and “St. David the Restorer”). As with most saints of the medieval Georgian Church, there is no single dated act of formal canonization on the later Western or modern Russian model; David’s veneration arose from the reverence of the Church and the people in the centuries after his death and has been continuous since, ratified by inclusion in the Church’s calendar and liturgical commemoration (Lang, Lives and Legends of the Georgian Saints, 1976, on the veneration of the Georgian royal saints; OCA, “Blessed David IV,” oca.org). The near-contemporary composition of his Life as a work already casting him in the mold of the holy king, and the immediate cult at his Gelati tomb, indicate that veneration began very early — the honor of a people who knew what he had done for them.

His epithet in the Church is one with his epithet in the nation: Aghmashenebeli (აღმაშენებელი), “the Builder” or “the Restorer” — the name that fuses the saint and the statesman, for the building and restoring of Georgia was itself the substance of his holiness (OCA, “Blessed David IV,” oca.org; en.wikipedia.org, “David IV,” on the epithet).

The Feast: 26 January

David the Builder is commemorated by the Georgian Orthodox Church on 26 January (Old Style), which in the modern civil calendar of the Georgian Church corresponds to 8 February (New Style) (OCA, “Blessed David IV,” oca.org, giving the feast as January 26; en.wikipedia.org, “David IV,” giving 8 February / 26 January O.S.). In Georgia the day is a significant commemoration — the feast of the nation’s greatest king and one of its most beloved saints — and it is marked at Gelati, where pilgrims still come to venerate the king at his gate-tomb (OCA, “Blessed David IV,” oca.org; and see Legacy). The victory of Didgori is separately commemorated in the Georgian civil and ecclesiastical calendar as Didgoroba (see The Battle of Didgori (1121)).

References

“Blessed David IV of Georgia.” Orthodox Church in America, oca.org/saints/lives/2019/01/26/100326-blessed-david-iv-king-of-georgia. (The feast of 26 January; the completed will and succession in 1125; the peaceful repose; the burial at the Gelati entrance; the tombstone inscription, Psalm 131; the epithet “the Restorer.”)
“David IV.” Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_IV. (Death 24 January 1125; age 51–52; feast 8 February / 26 January O.S.; the epithet Aghmashenebeli.)
Rayfield, Donald. Edge of Empires: A History of Georgia. London: Reaktion Books, 2012. (The succession of Demetre I.)
Lang, David Marshall. Lives and Legends of the Georgian Saints. London: Mowbrays, 1976. (The veneration of the Georgian royal saints; the humility of the burial.)
The Life of the King of Kings David (Cxovreba mepet-mepisa Davitisi), in Kartlis Tskhovreba: A History of Georgia, ed. Roin Metreveli, trans. Dmitri Gamq’relidze et al. (Tbilisi: Artanuji, 2014). (The pious close of the reign; the early casting of David as a holy king.)
The Gelati site tradition, armazi.uni-frankfurt.de (Armazi Project, Gelati). (The gate-tomb, the Psalm-inscription, and the humility-motif — reported as tradition.)