Eudemus I of Georgia

Saint Eudemus I Diasamidze (died 1642), hieromartyr, was Catholicos-⁠Patriarch of Georgia from 1632 to 1642, killed in prison by King Rostom for taking part in a conspiracy meant to bring Teimuraz I back to the throne. He is venerated in the Georgian Orthodox Church as a hieromartyr. He is commemorated on 4 (12) October.

Life

Almost nothing is known of his youth, except that he came from the Georgian noble family Diasamidze and was Archbishop of Bodbe from 1617 to 1619. It is also known that the son of King Teimuraz I was married to his niece. He was raised to the patriarchal throne in 1632, before the shah of Persia, Abbas, drove Teimuraz out of Kartli. In 1633 the Muslim Rostom Khan, set up by the shah, became king, and the patriarch set himself in opposition to him, because of the Muslim and Persian customs that had begun to be imposed. His tenure coincided with a great upheaval in the Georgian lands: in eastern Georgia, Kartli and Kakheti, Teimuraz had waged for decades a struggle against Iranian domination, while the west had been separated politically and ecclesiastically from the east.

Soon after his accession Rostom married Mariam Dadiani, from a noble Georgian family, a devout Christian and a spiritual daughter of the patriarch. In the queen Eudemus found a powerful protector of the Church. Thanks to her, ruined Orthodox churches were restored and spiritual books copied, among them the monks copied, with the queen's help, the greatest historical compilation, the Kartlis Tskhovreba. At the same time the patriarch went on making plans for the return of Teimuraz to the throne and for overthrowing the shah's power.

Martyrdom and veneration

In 1642 he took part in a conspiracy of Georgian nobles, among them Zaal, Duke of Aragvi, Nodar Tsitsishvili and Giorgi Gochashvili, against Rostom, meant to bring Teimuraz back from Kakheti. When Teimuraz had set out with an army from Kakheti, the conspiracy was betrayed and the plotters arrested. Teimuraz, despite the patriarch's letters, returned to Kakheti, while Eudemus was arrested, imprisoned in the citadel of Tbilisi and strangled in the dungeon. His body was thrown from a tower of the Ganja gate, found by a group of Christians and buried in the Anchiskhati church in Tbilisi, in the north-⁠west corner. He was glorified in the Georgian Church probably already in the eighteenth century. His holy relics rest in Anchiskhati, the oldest church of the capital.