George Merchule

Venerable George Merchule (tenth century) was a monk of the Khandzta Monastery, in Klarjeti, and the author of the Life of Venerable Gregory of Khandzta, written in the year 951. He is venerated as a saint in the Synaxis of the Venerable Fathers and Mothers of Klarjeti of the Orthodox Church of Georgia; he is commemorated on 5 October (old calendar).

He says himself, in his work, that "the life of the blessed Gregory was written at Khandzta through the joint zeal of all three: the abbot of Khandzta, his brother John and the author of this book, George Merchule." The Life of Gregory, preserved in an eleventh-⁠century manuscript kept at Jerusalem, discovered in 1902 by N. Y. Marr, is an important source for the history of Georgia and its Church in the eighth to tenth centuries. It describes the labours of Gregory, of his disciples, of the local rulers and of the hierarchs, the building of monasteries and the order of the desert of Klarjeti, and from it we know the names of most of the saints of Klarjeti. Merchule wrote it after the death of those men whom he thought worthy to write it, and says with humility that he rose up "as an ignorant and sinful man" to tell Gregory's life and signs. No other details of his life survive.