Mikheil Kuloshvili

Saint Mikheil Kuloshvili was a Georgian priest of the Ingiloi community and a public figure. He was born in 1825 and died in 1918. He was canonized by the Georgian Orthodox Church on 5 July 2012, and his day of commemoration is 5 July.

He was born in 1825, in the village of Kakhi (Qakh), to Rafael and Sabedo. He learned to write and read with the help of relatives and was fluent in Russian, Azerbaijani and Armenian, writing and reading in these languages too. He published his works in the Georgian press under the pseudonym Ereteli.

At first he served as a mullah, and in 1857 he was baptized a Christian. In 1858 the first parish school appeared, in which Father Mikheil also had a part. The school was opened in a house and had two classes. The school had great importance at the time, and Mikheil bought textbooks for his pupils and taught the children of the Ingiloi free of charge. According to a pupil of his, Mose (Moses) Janashvili, Father Mikheil restored the building of the Holy Trinity cathedral. From 1910 he was a member of the Society for the Spread of Literacy among Georgians and took part in its activity.

He was killed in 1918. Father Mikheil was lured on the pretext that he would be taken to hospital, but he was locked in a cellar and forced to accept Islam. According to an article of the National Parliamentary Library of Georgia, his body was found in a thick forest, wrapped in a shroud.