Aleksi Shushania

Venerable Aleksi Shushania was an archimandrite of the Georgian Orthodox Church, a recluse, ascetic and teacher of the Jesus Prayer. He was born in 1852 in the village of Nokalakevi, Senaki district, and reposed in 1923 at Senaki. He is honoured as Venerable Aleksi of Tekla.

He was born into a deeply believing family. Before his death in 1868, his father charged him with the care of the family. To help his relatives, Aleksi went that same year to Constantinople, where he helped his uncle, Islam Shushania, in business affairs. With his uncle he made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Soon, giving up taking part in trade, he resolved to become a monk. Returning to Georgia, with the blessing of his sick mother, he began to lead an ascetic life. Through his work, his mother and younger sisters also received monasticism.

After finishing the clerical school at Martvili, he prepared for monastic life. He engaged in charity among the needy, visited the prison, then entered the Gelati Monastery near Kutaisi, where he met his future spiritual father, Father Theodosius Eristavi. He spent about a year on Athos, where, having a fine hand, he copied spiritual and liturgical books. He made a second pilgrimage to Jerusalem, then returned to Georgia, where from 1885 he stayed at the Gelati Monastery, then at that of Khobi. In 1886 he received ordination as hierodeacon, and in 1888 became hieromonk. He was an ardent supporter of the revival of the autocephaly of the Georgian Church.

In 1891 he settled not far from Senaki, where, with his followers, he built on the top of a mountain a hermitage called the Island of the Archangels. In place of an old church he built a new one, dedicated to the Holy Archangels, in which he served for the next thirty-⁠two years, twenty-⁠five of which he spent in strict seclusion. Under his influence his uncle, Islam Shushania, also received Orthodox monasticism. His standing among the local Mingrelians was so great that the Bolsheviks did not dare to persecute him.

On 8 January 1960, under the direction of Metropolitan Ephraim, the incorrupt relics of Aleksi Shushania were found and moved to the church of the monastery he had founded at Senaki. He was canonized by the Georgian Orthodox Church in 1995.