Domentian of Mesukevi

Holy Martyr Domentian of Mesukevi was a Georgian by birth and one of the seventeen companions of Saint Sukhius, killed for Christ in the year 123 (according to other sources in 130; an eleventh-⁠century Athonite manuscript from the Iveron Monastery gives the year 100). With the baptismal name Domentian, he is counted among those who received martyrdom on Mount Sukaketi.

Sukhius and his sixteen companions were notable officials at the court of the ruler of Caucasian Albania. Accompanying the ruler's daughter Satenik, wife of the Armenian king Artaxias (88-123), 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 officials believed in the Saviour and resolved to devote all their lives to serving God. All seventeen newly converted Georgians followed Chrysos to Mesopotamia, where, at the baptism in the waters of the Euphrates, they were granted to see the Lord of glory, Jesus Christ.

At the place of baptism they raised an honourable cross and named it the Cross of the Annunciation. The priest Chrysos then gave them all new names: to the eldest, Sukhius, instead of Bagadras, and to his companions Andrew, Anastasius, Talale, Theodoritus, Ivhirion, Jordan, Condratus, Lucian, Mimnenos, Nerangios, Polyeuctus, James, Phocas, Domentian, Victor and Zosimas.

After the martyrdom of Chrysos, Sukhius became the spiritual father of the brotherhood. Soon all of them withdrew to a wild place on Mount Sukaketi, near the village of Bagrevand, where, once officials, they led a very austere life, feeding on the scant mountain plants and drinking cold spring water.

The new ruler of pagan Albania, Datianos, learned that his former officials had become Christians and settled in the solitude of prayer. He sent his intimate Barnabas with soldiers to persuade them to return to court and to their former faith. Barnabas found them, but they, keeping their vow of serving God, rejected all persuasion. Then, at Barnabas' command, Sukhius and his companions were nailed to the ground in the form of a cross and burned.

As he was dying, Condratus, and then the other martyrs, began to sing the twenty-⁠first psalm. After the burning their bodies were cut into pieces and scattered over the whole of Mount Sukaketi, from which the martyrs received the name of Mesukevi, more exactly of Sukaketi.

Their holy remains stayed unburied and incorrupt until the fourth century, when local Christians laid them in tombs; the names of the martyrs are said to have appeared written on the rock. Saint Gregory, the Illuminator of Armenia, built a church on that place and founded a monastery. Later a healing spring opened there.

He is commemorated on 28 April (new style), together with Sukhius, Andrew, Anastasius and the others, and on 22 November in the Synaxis of the Saints of Alania.