Georgian Christianity After Nino: The Church of Iberia

The institutional church that grew from Nino’s mission: the early organization of the Iberian church under clergy first sought from Constantine, its long subordination to the See of Antioch — whose patriarch consecrated the early Georgian bishops — the elevation of its primate to catholicos and the contested grant of autocephaly in the fifth century, the consolidation under a Catholicos-Patriarch in the eleventh, and the modern history of abolition under Russia, restoration in 1917, and recognition by Constantinople in 1990. This file traces that path, flagging the genuine disputes over the dates of autocephaly.

Tradition: Georgian Orthodox / Pan-Orthodox

From Mission to Institution

Nino’s mission produced a converted kingdom, but the institutional Church had to be sent for and built. In the earliest account the king, once converted, sent an embassy to the Emperor Constantine asking for clergy, and Constantine sent priests to organize the new church (Rufinus, HE 10.11; see Christianity as State Religion). From this beginning grew the Church of Iberia, later the Georgian Orthodox Church — one of the ancient autocephalous churches of the Orthodox communion (see Georgia (Autocephalous Churches)). This file traces its early organization and the long road from mission church to autocephalous patriarchate.

The Antiochene Tie

Though the first clergy came, in the narrative, from the Constantinian imperial Church, the enduring jurisdictional tie of the early Iberian church was to the See of Antioch. In the fourth and fifth centuries the Church of Iberia was subordinated to the Apostolic See of Antioch, and its bishops were consecrated at Antioch before being sent to Iberia (S. H. Rapp Jr., Studies in Medieval Georgian Historiography, Peeters, 2003; standard histories of the Georgian Church). This Antiochene orientation fits the southern and western gravitation of early Georgian Christianity — toward the Greek and Syriac East rather than only toward the empire’s capital — and it is from Antioch that the early Georgian church drew its episcopal succession and, eventually, the recognition of its autonomy.

The Path to Autocephaly

The Iberian church moved over centuries from this Antiochene subordination toward self-government. The traditional account associates the decisive step with King Vakhtang Gorgasali and the late fifth century, in the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Zeno (474–491): the primate of the Iberian church was raised from archbishop to catholicos, and a measure of autocephaly was granted — by the tradition, by the Patriarch of Antioch. The dates given in the sources, however, conflict sharply, and the matter is genuinely disputed.

[Disputed: The grant of Georgian autocephaly is variously dated to 466, 467, or 484/486, traditionally by the Patriarchate of Antioch, in the reign of Emperor Zeno (474–491) and associated with King Vakhtang Gorgasali; reference works are internally inconsistent (e.g., body text giving 466 against an infobox 486). Some scholars hold that full autocephaly came only later, after the Arab conquest. The autocephaly was consolidated in the 11th century (Catholicos-Patriarch Melchisedek I, 1010–1033), abolished by Russia in 1811, restored unilaterally by the Georgian Church in 1917, recognized by the Moscow Patriarchate in 1943, and recognized by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople on 25 January 1990. Whether the modern acts granted or merely recognized an ancient autocephaly is itself disputed between the Georgian and the wider Orthodox accounts.]

Consolidation and the Catholicos-Patriarchate

As the unified Georgian kingdom took shape, the church’s independence was consolidated. In the eleventh century Melchisedek I (catholicos 1010–1033) became the first Catholicos-Patriarch of all Georgia, the title the primate of the Georgian Orthodox Church bears to this day. The patriarchal cathedral was, and remains, Svetitskhoveli at Mtskheta, built over the site of Nino’s living pillar (see The Living Pillar). The Georgian Church thus carried the memory of its origin in Nino’s mission into its very constitution: its mother cathedral is the church of the miracle that crowned her work, and its catholicosate descends from the kingdom she converted.

The Modern History of the Status

The Georgian Church’s autocephaly was interrupted and contested in the modern period, in ways the repository treats with both-sides care where the question is live (METHODOLOGY §4). In 1811, following the Russian annexation of Georgia, the imperial government abolished Georgian autocephaly and placed the church under the Russian Holy Synod as an Exarchate of Georgia. In 1917, amid the Russian Revolution, the Georgian Church unilaterally restored its autocephaly. The Moscow Patriarchate recognized the restored autocephaly in 1943, and the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople formally recognized the Georgian autocephaly and the patriarchal dignity on 25 January 1990. The Georgian Church maintains that its autocephaly is ancient — fifth-century, from Antioch — and that the modern acts acknowledged rather than created it; this self-understanding is itself part of the dispute noted above. The fuller institutional history belongs to the Orthodoxy guide (see Georgia (Autocephalous Churches)).

The Disciples and the Early Sees

The developed Georgian tradition surrounds the founding of the church with a cast of named early figures who carry the institutional story forward from Nino’s mission. The royal converts Mirian and Nana endow and build; their son Rev and his wife Salome of Ujarma, with Perozhavra of Sivnia, belong to the Life’s deathbed frame (see The Developed Hagiography); the converted Jewish priest Abiatar, “the second Paul” of the Georgian tradition, and his daughter Sidonia lead the Mtskheta Jewish community into the Church. The first bishop, John, is said to have come with the clergy sent from Constantine, establishing the episcopal see at Mtskheta. The tradition further remembers the building of churches at Mtskheta, Ujarma, and elsewhere, and the planting of the cross at the sites of the conversion. These figures and foundations are features of the developed Life and the Kartlis Tskhoveba, reported as that tradition transmits them; what they convey, beneath the hagiographic detail, is the early consolidation of an organized church across the kingdom in the generations after the conversion.

Mtskheta, Sees, and the Shape of the Church

As the church grew it took the territorial shape it would long keep: the primatial see at Mtskheta, the old royal capital and the site of Svetitskhoveli, with bishoprics established across Kartli and, in time, into Kakheti and the western Georgian lands. The catholicosate of Mtskheta became the center of the Georgian church, and the catholicos-patriarch its head; at periods of political division the western Georgian church (Abkhazia/Imereti) had its own catholicos, the two reuniting as the Georgian kingdom did. This institutional geography — a national church centered on the holy city of the conversion, extending with the kingdom and contracting with its divisions — carried the memory of Nino’s mission in its very structure, and it is the framework within which the modern history of the autocephaly (above) unfolds. The fuller account belongs to the Orthodoxy guide (see Georgia (Autocephalous Churches)).

Nino’s Place in the Church She Founded

For all the institutional development, the Georgian Church has never ceased to date itself from Nino. She is honored as its founder and enlightener, Equal-to-the-Apostles (see Equal-to-the-Apostles); the catholicosate she stands behind, the mother cathedral built on her miracle, and the cross that is the church’s emblem all trace to her mission. The church of Iberia is, in its own self-understanding, the church Nino founded — organized by clergy from Constantine, consecrated through Antioch, raised to a catholicosate and a patriarchate, but apostolic in its root through the captive woman whom the Georgian tradition names Nino. The fusion of that church with the Georgian nation is the subject of the companion file.

References

Rufinus of Aquileia. Historia Ecclesiastica 10.11. Trans. Amidon, Oxford 1997. (The embassy and first clergy.)
Rapp, Stephen H., Jr. Studies in Medieval Georgian Historiography. CSCO 601, Subsidia 113. Louvain: Peeters, 2003. (On the early Iberian church and its Antiochene ties.)
Mgaloblishvili, Tamila, ed. Ancient Christianity in the Caucasus. Caucasus World / Iberica-Caucasica 1. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 1998.
On the Georgian autocephaly (5th-c. grant, Catholicos-Patriarch Melchisedek I, the 1811 abolition, the 1917 restoration, the 1943 Moscow and 1990 Constantinople recognitions): standard histories of the Georgian Orthodox Church and the Pravoslavnaya Entsiklopediya article on the Church of Georgia (used to locate the dates; the modern acts cited to the church’s own and the patriarchates’ records).