Anastasius of Mesukevi

Holy Martyr Anastasius of Mesukevi, a Georgian, is commemorated together with Holy Martyr Sukhius, the leader of his sixteen companions, among them Andrew, Anastasius and others. They are commemorated on 28 April and on 22 November, in the Synaxis of the Saints of Alania.

Saint Sukhius and his sixteen Georgian companions were great nobles at the court of the ruler of Caucasian Albania, a country in present-⁠day Azerbaijan. Accompanying Satenik, the daughter of the Albanian ruler and wife of the Armenian king Artaxias (88 to 123), they came to Artashat, the ancient capital of Armenia. There the Greek Christian Chrysos was preaching, enlightened and ordained priest by the Holy Apostle Thaddeus. The nobles believed in the Saviour and resolved to devote their whole lives to the service of God. All seventeen Georgians followed Chrysos to Mesopotamia. At the Baptism in the waters of the Euphrates, performed by the priest Chrysos, they were found worthy to see the Lord of glory, Jesus Christ. At the place of Baptism they raised an honoured cross and called it the "Cross of the Annunciation". At the Baptism the priest Chrysos gave them all new names: to the eldest, Sukhius (instead of Bagadras), and to his companions Andrew, Anastasius, Talale, Theodoret, Ibhirion, Jordan, Kondrat, Lucian, Mimnenos, Nerangios, Polyeuctus, James, Phocas, Domentian, Victor and Zosimas.

After the martyric death of the blessed Chrysos, Saint Sukhius became the spiritual guide of the brothers. Soon all moved to a wild place on Mount Sukaketi, not far from the mountain village of Bagrevandi, where, former nobles, they led a very strict ascetic life: their food was the scanty mountain plants, and their drink cold spring water. The new ruler of pagan Albania, Datianos, learned that his former nobles had accepted Christianity and settled in prayerful solitude. He sent his close associate Barnabas with a band of soldiers to persuade them to return to court and to their former faith. Barnabas found Saint Sukhius and his companions, but they, keeping their vow of service to God, rejected every persuasion.

Then, by Barnabas's order, Saint Sukhius and his companions were nailed to the ground in the form of a cross and burned. As he died, Saint Kondrat, and then the other martyrs, began to sing Psalm 21. After the burning their bodies were hacked up and scattered over the whole of Mount Sukaketi, whence the martyrs received the name of the martyrs of Mesukevi (more correctly, of Sukaketi). This took place in the year 123 (according to other data in 130; an eleventh-⁠century parchment manuscript from the Iveron Monastery on Athos gives the year 100). Their holy relics remained unburied and incorrupt until the fourth century, when local Christians placed them in coffins and buried them; the names of the holy martyrs were found written on the rock. Saint Gregory the Illuminator, hieromartyr, enlightener of Armenia (died about 335, commemorated on 30 September), raised a church there and founded a monastery. Later a healing spring appeared there.