Mimnenos of Mesukevi

Holy Martyr Mimnenos of Mesukevi, a Georgian, is counted among the seventeen Georgian martyrs led by Saint Sukhi (Sukhius), who suffered at Mount Sukaketi. Sukhius and his sixteen companions, Georgians, were great dignitaries at the court of the Albanian (Agvan) ruler (Caucasian Albania, a state on the territory of present-⁠day Azerbaijan). Accompanying the daughter of the Albanian ruler, Satenik, wife of the Armenian king Artaxias (88-123), they came to Artashat, the ancient capital of Armenia. There the Greek Christian Chrysos preached, enlightened and ordained a priest by the Holy Apostle Thaddeus. The dignitaries believed in the Saviour and firmly resolved to devote their whole life to the service of God. All seventeen newly baptized Georgians followed Chrysos to Mesopotamia. At the Baptism in the waters of the Euphrates, performed by the priest Chrysos, they were found worthy to see the Lord of glory, Jesus Christ.

At the place of the Baptism the martyrs raised a venerable cross, called the "Cross of the Annunciation". At the Baptism the priest Chrysos gave them new names: to the eldest, Sukhius (in place of Bagadras), and to his companions Andrew, Anastasius, Talale, Theodoret, Ivkhirion, Jordan, Condratus, Lucian, Mimnenos, Nerangios, Polyeuctus, Jacob, Phocas, Domentian, Victor and Zosimas. After the martyr's end of the blessed Chrysos, Sukhius became the spiritual guide of the brethren. Soon all moved to a wild place on Mount Sukaketi, near the mountain village of Bagrevandi. There the former dignitaries led a life of very strict asceticism, with food from the scant plants of the mountain and drink of cold spring water.

The new ruler of pagan Albania, Datianos, learned that his former dignitaries had accepted Christianity and settled in prayerful solitude. He commissioned his man Barnapas, with a band of soldiers, to persuade them to return to the court and to their former faith. Barnapas found Sukhius and his companions, but they, keeping their vow of service to God, rejected all persuasion. Then, at the command of Barnapas, Sukhius and his companions were pinned to the ground in the form of a cross and burned. As he died, Condratus, and then the other martyrs, sang the twenty-⁠first psalm. After the burning their bodies were hacked in pieces and scattered over all of Mount Sukaketi, whence the martyrs received the name of Mesukevi (more correctly, Sukaketi). This took place in the year 123 (by other data in 130; an Athonite parchment manuscript of the eleventh century from the Iviron monastery gives the year 100).

The holy remains lay unburied and incorrupt until the fourth century, when local Christians placed them in coffins and buried them; the names of the martyrs were found inscribed on the rock. Saint Gregory the Illuminator of Armenia (around 335) built a church on that place and founded a monastery, and later a healing spring appeared there. Mimnenos is commemorated on 28 April, in the new style, and on 22 November, on a movable day, with the Synaxis of the Alan saints.