St. Nina (Nino) of Georgia: Reference Guide

A structured reference guide to St. Nina — in Georgian, Nino — of Georgia (c. 296 – c. 338/340), Equal-to-the-Apostles, Enlightener of Georgia (Iberia), whose mission led to the conversion of King Mirian III and the establishment of Christianity as the religion of the kingdom of Kartli. It is, distinctively, a guide to a layered hagiographical subject: the earliest source, Rufinus’s Ecclesiastical History (c. 402/403), names no “Nino” but tells of an unnamed Christian captive whose holiness converted a kingdom; the developed Georgian Life of St. Nino / Conversion of Kartli (Mokʻcʻevay Kʻartʻlisay), in recensions of the ninth and tenth centuries and after, names and elaborates her into the apostle venerated today. Built from the primary sources (Rufinus and the Greek historians; the Georgian Conversion of Kartli and Life of St. Nino in Lerner’s and Wardrop’s translations) and the modern scholarship (Rapp, Lerner, Mgaloblishvili, Eastmond), the collection foregrounds provenance throughout.

Purpose

This collection serves as both:

A human-readable study guide — organized by topic for systematic engagement with the life, mission, miracles, and reception of St. Nino, the apostle of Georgia.
A machine-loadable knowledge base — each file is self-contained enough to be loaded independently for context on a specific topic.

It is, distinctively, a study in two disciplines of attestation: the careful separation of the earliest layer (Rufinus’s anonymous captive, c. 402/403) from the developed Georgian layer (the named Nino of the Life, centuries later), and the honest handling of a saint whose richest biography is late, partly legendary, and woven into the identity of a nation. The repository’s model statement for such a thin-source, layered subject is the St. Xenia methodology file; this collection applies the same discipline to a subject where the two layers are unusually clean.

Section	Description
01 — Foundations	The flagship source-criticism and the traditional biography — origins-and-the-sources.md, the-traditional-biography.md
02 — The Captive and the Conversion	Rufinus’s earliest account and its assessment — rufinus-and-the-captive-woman.md, the-earliest-layer-assessed.md
03 — The Georgian Life of Nino	The developed hagiography and the mission narrative — the-developed-hagiography.md, miracles-and-the-mission.md
04 — The Conversion of King Mirian	The darkness and the prayer; Christianity as state religion — the-darkness-and-the-prayer.md, christianity-as-state-religion.md
05 — Svetitskhoveli and the Living Pillar	The living pillar and the Robe of Christ tradition — the-living-pillar.md, the-robe-of-christ-tradition.md
06 — The Grapevine Cross	The cross of St. Nino and its symbolism — the-cross-of-st-nino.md, symbol-of-georgian-christianity.md
07 — The Church She Founded	Georgian Christianity after Nino; Nino and the nation — georgian-christianity-after-nino.md, nino-and-the-georgian-nation.md
08 — Veneration and Shrines	Bodbe and the relics; feasts and devotion — bodbe-and-the-relics.md, feasts-and-devotion.md
09 — Legacy and Reception	Equal-to-the-Apostles; modern scholarship — equal-to-the-apostles.md, modern-scholarship.md

How to Use This Guide

For study: Start with Section 01 (Foundations), and above all with Origins and the Sources, the source-critical statement that governs the whole collection. Sections 02 and 03 set the earliest layer and the developed layer side by side; the rest follows the mission, the miracles, the church, and the cult.
For reference: Use the section READMEs to locate the specific topic you need. The distinction between “Rufinus reports…” and “the Georgian Life adds…” is maintained in every file.
For AI loading: Each file is self-contained, with a summary, inline citations, and a references section. Load only the files relevant to your query.
Cross-reference: This guide connects to the broader Orthodoxy Reference Guide — especially Georgia (Autocephalous Churches), The Pre-Schism Church, and Women in Orthodoxy.

File Format

Each content file follows a consistent structure:

# Title
> Brief 2-3 sentence summary
**Tradition**: Georgian Orthodox / Pan-Orthodox

[Content with inline citations]

## See Also
- Links to related files

## References
- Sources cited

Primary Sources

The principal sources drawn upon in this guide:

Rufinus of Aquileia, Historia Ecclesiastica 10.11 (c. 402/403) — the earliest written account of the conversion of Iberia, told on the authority of the Iberian prince Bacurius, with the Christian protagonist unnamed. English: Philip R. Amidon, trans., The Church History of Rufinus of Aquileia, Books 10 and 11 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997).
Socrates Scholasticus (HE 1.20), Sozomen (HE 2.7), Theodoret (HE 1.24 / 1.23 NPNF) — the Greek historians who retell Rufinus, the captive still anonymous.
The Conversion of Kʻartʻli (Mokʻcʻevay Kʻartʻlisay) and The Life of St. Nino — the developed Georgian tradition that names Nino, in recensions of the ninth–tenth centuries (Shatberdi Codex, 973; the later Chelishi manuscript) and the eleventh-century reworking of Leonti Mroveli. English: Constantine B. Lerner, The Wellspring of Georgian Historiography (London: Bennett & Bloom, 2004); and Marjory Wardrop, “Life of St. Nino,” Studia Biblica et Ecclesiastica V (Oxford, 1900).
Stephen H. Rapp Jr., Studies in Medieval Georgian Historiography (Peeters, 2003) and The Sasanian World through Georgian Eyes (Ashgate, 2014) — the foundational modern study of the texts, recensions, and dating.
Tamila Mgaloblishvili (ed.), Ancient Christianity in the Caucasus (Curzon, 1998); Antony Eastmond, Royal Imagery in Medieval Georgia (Penn State Press, 1998); Cyril Toumanoff, Studies in Christian Caucasian History (Georgetown UP, 1967); David Marshall Lang, Lives and Legends of the Georgian Saints (1956).

Sourcing & Methodology

This collection is governed by the repository METHODOLOGY.md, and is shaped by two disciplines particular to its subject:

Layer-separation. St. Nino’s story reaches us in two layers separated by centuries and language. The earliest (Rufinus and the Greek historians) gives an unnamed captive; the developed Georgian Life supplies the name, the biography, and the elaborate miracles. Per METHODOLOGY §3.5, every claim is pinned to its earliest attestation, “Rufinus reports…” is kept distinct from “the Georgian Life adds…,” and the developed legend is never asserted as adjudicated history.
Hagiography is not adjudicated history. Miracle accounts and legendary elaborations — the Theotokos vision, the grapevine cross, the destruction of the idols, the Robe-of-Christ and living-pillar complex, the kinship claims — are reported as what the sources attest, with the source named and dated, and never certified as historical fact. The dating of the conversion (multiple proposed years), the absence of Nino’s name in the earliest sources, the kinship claims, and the relic/Robe traditions all carry structured [Disputed: …] or attestation notes.

Important Caveats

AI-generated content: This guide was generated by an AI assistant. While care has been taken to cite real sources and present the history and theology accurately, all content should be verified against primary sources before being relied upon for catechetical or academic purposes.
Born-compliant: Files in this collection are born compliant with METHODOLOGY.md §2–3: each date, quotation, and attribution was researched and given a disposition during composition; claims where the sources genuinely disagree carry structured [Disputed: …] notes; and the layered hagiography is pinned to its earliest written attestation under §3.5 rather than asserted as fact. This collection contains no bare [Verify] tags on content claims.
A layered subject: The earliest source names no Nino; the developed Georgian biography is centuries later and in part demonstrably anachronistic (the kinship with the fifth-century Patriarch Juvenal). The collection foregrounds this throughout; it is the point, not a flaw.
Contested dates: The year of the conversion of Iberia, and St. Nino’s own dates, are genuinely unsettled; they are given as ranges with the proposed years and their proponents named, never as a single number.
Not a substitute: This reference is not a substitute for reading the primary sources directly, nor for catechesis under a priest or spiritual direction.

Tradition Labels

Each file is tagged Georgian Orthodox / Pan-Orthodox — the cult of St. Nino is centered in the Georgian Orthodox Church, of which she is the founder and enlightener, and she is venerated across the canonical Orthodox Churches as Equal-to-the-Apostles.

Cross-References to the Orthodoxy Guide and Sibling Collections

Orthodoxy: Georgia (Autocephalous Churches) — the Georgian Orthodox Church, its autocephaly, and its holy places; the institutional anchor for this collection.
Orthodoxy: The Pre-Schism Church — the undivided Constantinian Church into which Iberia entered.
Orthodoxy: Church Fathers — Rufinus and the Greek historians who supply the earliest layer.
Orthodoxy: Women in Orthodoxy — women apostles and the place of women in the tradition.
St. Mary of Egypt — another woman saint whose story is transmitted in a layered tradition.
St. Xenia of Petersburg — the repository’s model treatment of a thin-source woman saint.
St. Herman of Alaska — the repository’s model for grading hagiographic attestation.

Generated as a reference knowledge base. Last structured: 2026.