The Reorganization of the Georgian Church

Vakhtang’s work for the ordering of the Church of Kartli: the multiplication of bishoprics and the strengthening of the see of Mtskheta as the tradition presents it, and the building of the great stone cathedral of Svetitskhoveli over St. Nina’s wooden church. This file sets out the ecclesiastical achievement the tradition credits to Vakhtang, distinguishing the credible institutional core from the contested particulars.

Tradition: Georgian Orthodox

A Church a Century and a Half Old

By Vakhtang’s time the Church of Kartli was some five or six generations old — planted by St. Nina in the fourth century, established under King Mirian III, and staffed at its higher levels by clergy consecrated, in the Georgian tradition, from the great see of Antioch (Lang, Lives and Legends of the Georgian Saints, 1976, on Nina and the early Church; Rapp, Studies in Medieval Georgian Historiography, 2003; see St. Nina of Georgia). But a Church a century and a half old, in a small kingdom under Zoroastrian pressure, still needed building: a fuller network of bishoprics to reach the whole land, a clearer relation between the crown and the hierarchy, and the physical fabric — cathedrals and churches — that a mature Christian kingdom required. The tradition presents Vakhtang as the king who supplied these things, reordering and strengthening the Church of Kartli as part of his wider reconstruction of the realm (Suny, The Making of the Georgian Nation, 1994, 25; Rayfield, Edge of Empires: A History of Georgia, 2012, ch. 2).

This linkage of Church-reform to state-building is historically credible in its shape, whatever the uncertainty of its details. A strong Christian kingship and a well-ordered Church were, in the late-antique Caucasus, two faces of one project: the crown needed the Church as an instrument of cohesion and legitimacy against the Zoroastrian overlord, and the Church needed the crown’s protection and patronage to grow (Suny, The Making of the Georgian Nation, 1994; Rapp, The Sasanian World through Georgian Eyes, 2014). That Vakhtang, the great reorganizer of the tradition, should have reordered the Church along with the state is entirely of a piece with his portrait.

The Multiplication of Bishoprics

The most concrete ecclesiastical achievement the tradition credits to Vakhtang is the multiplication of episcopal sees — the establishment of a fuller network of bishoprics across Kartli, traditionally numbered at twelve, under the primacy of the bishop of the royal city of Mtskheta (Suny, The Making of the Georgian Nation, 1994, 25; the tradition of twelve sees is standard in the Georgian ecclesiastical accounts and is bound up with the Catholicosate tradition, see The Catholicosate Question). The founding of new bishoprics would have extended the Church’s reach into regions it had not adequately served, tied the provincial hierarchy more closely to the center, and given the Church of Kartli the articulated structure of a national Church rather than a mission still dependent on foreign consecration.

[Disputed: the number and dating of the bishoprics established under Vakhtang. The tradition credits him with the founding or reordering of the episcopal sees of Kartli (commonly numbered twelve) under the primacy of Mtskheta; the number and the attribution to Vakhtang specifically rest on the later Georgian ecclesiastical tradition rather than on contemporary documents, and are bound up with the disputed Catholicosate tradition (see the following file). Historians accept that the Church of Kartli was significantly organized in the fifth century and that Vakhtang’s reign is a plausible context for it, while treating the precise figures and their attribution as tradition (Suny, The Making of the Georgian Nation, 1994; Rapp, Studies in Medieval Georgian Historiography, 2003).]

Svetitskhoveli: The Cathedral at Mtskheta

The most tangible of Vakhtang’s ecclesiastical works — and the one with real archaeological and architectural grounding — is the cathedral of Svetitskhoveli at Mtskheta. Svetitskhoveli (the “Life-Giving Pillar”) is the mother-church of Georgian Christianity, built on the site where, in the tradition of St. Nina, the robe of Christ was buried and the miraculous pillar stood (Lang, Lives and Legends of the Georgian Saints, 1976, on the Svetitskhoveli tradition). The first church there, ascribed to King Mirian III in the fourth century, was a wooden structure; the tradition holds that Vakhtang replaced or enlarged it with a substantial stone basilica, giving the mother-see of Kartli a cathedral worthy of it (Rayfield, Edge of Empires: A History of Georgia, 2012, ch. 2; the tradition of Vakhtang’s stone church at Svetitskhoveli is standard in the Georgian accounts).

[Disputed: the phase of Svetitskhoveli attributable to Vakhtang. The tradition credits Vakhtang with building a stone cathedral at Svetitskhoveli in place of Mirian III’s earlier wooden church; the present cathedral, however, is an eleventh-century structure (built under Catholicos Melchizedek I and the architect Arsukisdze, c. 1010–1029), and the fifth-century fabric is known only through the building’s earlier phases and the tradition, not preserved intact (Rayfield, Edge of Empires, 2012; the eleventh-century rebuilding is well attested architecturally). That an early stone basilica preceded the eleventh-century cathedral is architecturally plausible; its precise attribution to Vakhtang is traditional. This collection reports the Vakhtang-phase as tradition and notes the standing cathedral’s later date.]

The point of the qualification is not to strip Svetitskhoveli from Vakhtang but to place his contribution rightly: he belongs to the long building-history of the mother-church, most likely as the founder of an early stone basilica on the sacred site, within a tradition of royal patronage that runs from Mirian III through Vakhtang to the eleventh-century cathedral that stands today (Rayfield, Edge of Empires, 2012). His care for Svetitskhoveli, whatever its exact extent, is of a piece with his whole ecclesiastical program — the king who ordered the Church of Kartli and gave its mother-see a cathedral.

The Credible Core

Setting the disputed particulars aside, what survives as credible historical core? That the Church of Kartli underwent significant organization and strengthening in the fifth century; that Vakhtang’s reign is a plausible and traditionally unanimous context for that work; that the king reordered the relation of crown and Church as part of his wider reconstruction of the realm; and that he patronized the mother-see of Mtskheta and its cathedral of Svetitskhoveli (Suny, The Making of the Georgian Nation, 1994, 25; Rayfield, Edge of Empires: A History of Georgia, 2012, ch. 2; Rapp, Studies in Medieval Georgian Historiography, 2003). What remains genuinely open — the exact number of sees, the precise fabric of Svetitskhoveli, and above all the question of autocephaly and the Catholicosate — is the business of the following file, which treats the most contested claim of the whole tradition. Here it is enough to establish that Vakhtang’s standing as a reformer of the Georgian Church rests on a real and credible foundation, even where its details cannot be fixed.

See Also

References

  • Suny, Ronald Grigor. The Making of the Georgian Nation. 2nd ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994. (The organization of the Church under Vakhtang; the twelve sees; the link of Church and state.)
  • Rayfield, Donald. Edge of Empires: A History of Georgia. London: Reaktion, 2012. (Vakhtang and Svetitskhoveli; the church-building; the later cathedral.)
  • Rapp, Stephen H., Jr. Studies in Medieval Georgian Historiography: Early Texts and Eurasian Contexts. Louvain: Peeters, CSCO 601, 2003. (The Georgian ecclesiastical tradition and its sources.)
  • Rapp, Stephen H., Jr. The Sasanian World through Georgian Eyes. Farnham: Ashgate, 2014. (Church and crown in the Iranian Caucasus.)
  • Lang, David Marshall. Lives and Legends of the Georgian Saints. London: Mowbrays, 1976. (St. Nina, Mirian III, and the Svetitskhoveli tradition.)