Fathers of the Klarjeti Wilderness

The Fathers of the Klarjeti Wilderness are the monastic fathers and mothers who struggled in Tao-⁠Klarjeti, in southwestern Georgia, in the eighth and ninth centuries, and who are commemorated together. The Georgian Church honours them on 5 October by the old style (18 October by the new style).

Between the eighth and tenth centuries, when Arab rule had almost extinguished cultural life and faith in Kartli, Tao-⁠Klarjeti, emptied by cholera and invasions, filled with churches and monasteries and drew many ascetics. In the words of Saint Ekvtime Taqaishvili, every monastery had a school and a seminary, where the faith, philosophy, Greek and other languages, chant, calligraphy, painting and metalwork were taught. There lives of saints were written, original hymns composed and theological books translated. The lives of the fathers of Tao-⁠Klarjeti were preserved by Saint George Merchule, who struggled in the Khandzta wilderness in the tenth century, in his work The Life of Saint Gregory of Khandzta.

At the head of this spiritual revival stood Saint Gregory of Khandzta, a priest of great virtue and wisdom, a good shepherd and builder of churches. Commemorated beside him, among others, are Saint Nerse III the Catholicos, an Armenian by birth, who confessed the Orthodox faith and laid the foundations of the church of Ishkhani in the first half of the seventh century; Saint Hilarion the Catholicos, a disciple of Gregory and abbot of Tsqarostavi, chosen in the middle of the ninth century as catholicos of Kartli, in the see later held by Arsenius the Great; Saint Stephen of Tbeti, first bishop of Tbeti and a notable writer and hagiographer, credited with The Martyrdom of Saint Gobron; Saint Zachariah of Anchi, a shepherd from childhood, who worked miracles and was consecrated bishop of Anchi; Saints Macarius and Ezra of Anchi; Saint Savva of Ishkhani, a kinsman and close companion of Gregory, who restored the church of Ishkhani destroyed by the Arabs and became bishop there; Saint John the New Martyr, a monk of Khandzta, seized by the Saracens at Baghdad on his way to Jerusalem and killed for Christ; Saints Theodore, founder of Nedzvi Monastery, and Christopher, founder of Dviri Monastery, Gregory's first disciples, who raised Arsenius the Great and Ephraim of Atsquri; Saints George, Amona, Peter and Macarius of the Opiza wilderness; Saint Serapion of Zarzma, founder of Zarzma Monastery in Samtskhe, with his nephew Saint Basil, author of his life, and their successors as abbots; Saint Khvedios, a hermit in the caves of Khandzta, who lived in solitude and whose cell filled with fragrance after his repose; Saint Epiphanius, a wonderworker and example of obedience; and Saint Matthew, who for a time led a women's monastery.

Their common commemoration recalls that Tao-⁠Klarjeti renewed the soul of the Georgian people and led those who had gone astray back to the right path.