Konstanti-⁠Kakhay

Saint Constantine Kakhay (Kostanti-⁠Kakhay, 768 to 10 November 853), martyr, was a Georgian Christian nobleman of Kartli, seized in 853 by the Abbasid general Bugha the Elder in his expedition into the Caucasus and put to death, at eighty-⁠five, for refusing to accept Islam. He was numbered among the saints by the Georgian Orthodox Church, which commemorates him on 10 November (Old Style; our record has 23 November). His capture is confirmed by a Georgian inscription in the Sioni church at Ateni, and his martyrdom is mentioned by the Armenian chronicler Thomas Artsruni.

The sources

His life is known chiefly from the hagiographic work "The Life and Passion of Kostanti-⁠Kakhay", the full title of which is "the Life and Passion of the Holy Martyr Constantine the Georgian, who was Martyred by Jafar, King of the Babylonians". Its anonymous author, apparently a monk, identifies himself as a contemporary of Constantine, saying that the martyr "lived in our time", when the Byzantine empress Theodora, an opponent of iconoclasm, reigned, also mentioning her son Michael III (842 to 867). The work reflects the rise of Byzantine cultural and political influence and of Georgian nationalism; it incorporates many other narratives and several biblical allusions. Its opening phrases are a literal translation from the Life of Saint John Chrysostom by George of Alexandria, otherwise unknown in Georgian until 968; there are also echoes of earlier Georgian writings, such as the Passion of Eustathius of Mtskheta (570s) and the Passion of Abo of Tbilisi (about 790). The earliest surviving manuscript is from the early eighteenth century; it was first published by Mikhail Sabinin in 1882 and translated into Latin (P. Peeters, 1925), Russian (1978) and English (2004).

Life

According to the Life, he was born in 768 into a noble family of Kartli; "Kakhay" is the sobriquet, indicating his origin from Kakheti. He amassed great wealth and professed Christianity publicly, at a time when Abbasid hegemony was strongly felt in the Georgian lands and an Arab emir sat at Tbilisi, the former capital of Kartli. He was respected for his generosity, for pilgrimage and gifts to Jerusalem. He was eighty-⁠five when he was seized, as "a leader and the most noble man in all of Kartli", by Bugha, the Turkic commander of the Abbasid army in the Caucasus, and sent to the court of the caliph al-⁠Mutawakkil at Samarra. The seasoned captive rejected both the offers of wealth in return for apostasy and the threats of torture, remaining steadfast. Two noblemen (eristavi) from Somkhiti, who had agreed to convert to Islam, visited him in prison, first to persuade him and a second time to behead him, and in both cases they failed. Then the caliph sent his own servant, who put the steadfast prisoner to death.

Historical evidence

A stone inscription in the Ateni Sioni church, near Gori, confirms the account: "On 5 August, a Saturday, in koronikon 73, the Islamic year 239, Bugha burnt the city of Tbilisi and captured the Emir Sahak and killed him. And also in August, on the 26th, on Saturday, Zirak took Kakha and his son Tarkhuji prisoner." These events took place in Bugha's expedition into the Caucasus, in which he sacked Tbilisi and had the rebellious emir Ishaq ibn Isma'il ("Sahak") executed, while the Georgian nobles who had sided with him were punished in reprisal raids by Bugha and his lieutenant Zirak. The Armenian historian of the ninth to tenth century Thomas Artsruni tells of the same events and mentions the martyrdom of Kakhay, "of the upper land", and his companion Sevordi. Another Armenian historian, John Draskhanakertsi, speaks of seven men martyred under Bugha in 302 of the Armenian era, which corresponds to the year of Constantine's death.