Macarius of Opiza

Venerable Macarius of Opiza (ninth century) was abbot of the Opiza Monastery, in Tao-⁠Klarjeti (today in Turkey), a contemporary and fellow-⁠ascetic of Venerable Gregory of Khandzta. He is venerated as a saint in the Synaxis of the Venerable Fathers and Mothers of Klarjeti of the Orthodox Church of Georgia, canonized in October 2002 (by other data in 2003); he is commemorated on 5 October (old calendar).

The Life of Venerable Gregory, written by George Merchule, preserves an incident from Gregory's "days of old age." One day at the grape harvest Gregory and his disciple Zeno went down from Khandzta into a well-⁠kept vineyard on the way to Opiza, and there came "beloved" Macarius, to see his teacher and ask for guidance on the order of the spiritual life in Tao-⁠Klarjeti. The conversation is given at length. Macarius asked whether the son of heretics, converted to Orthodoxy, must be baptised, and Gregory answered that even under threat of death infants must not be allowed to be baptised by a heretical priest, because "better to die unbaptised than to become godless by transgressing the law"; the children of heretics, he said, were to be baptised in any case. Macarius also asked to be taught a word about the Holy Trinity, good for answering opponents, for he often had to dispute with heretics. Gregory pointed him to the testimony of the prophet Isaiah on the equality of the Persons of the Trinity and to the example of three candles in a room, whose light can be neither divided nor mixed, from the homilies of Saint Gregory the Theologian.

Macarius was also witness of a wonder: while Gregory and Zeno were singing Matins, he dozed off, and then "divine grace shone upon them with a glory of light... like a ray of sun lighting a dark room."