Onopre of Gareja

Venerable Onopre of Gareja, called Otar Machutadze in the world, was a nobleman of Guria, then a monk and abbot of the David Gareja monastery and a church writer, dead in 1732 or 1733. In 1676 he moved with his brother Maxime from Guria to Kartli, when Prince Levan married Tuta, daughter of Kaikhosro I Gurieli; the brothers, men of the Church, were counted in Tuta's retinue. In 1683 Prince Levan gave him the office of "mestvule of Samtsevrisi". He was noted for hospitality, almsgiving and comforting the needy. He longed for the monastic life, wore sackcloth under his noble clothing and prayed constantly to the Lord to give him strength for the life of a monk.

Once he said to his wife: "Now I wish to renounce the world and follow Christ", and he asked forgiveness of all his household. His wife did not hinder him. With his two elder sons he went to Tbilisi, blessed them and went on to the Gareja monastery. Archimandrite Germane received him and told the brothers that this man would attain a great measure. Once the monastery was raided by Lezgins; several priests, among them the hieromonks Maxime and Joachim, the monk Onopre and four subdeacons, were taken captive. The Lezgins wished to kill Onopre but released him and returned him to the monastery. Knowing Arabic, which no one else did, he spoke with an Arab who came to the monastery and healed his sick eye with water from the spring of Saint David of Gareja. Near Tskhinvali he healed a deranged youth with dust from the tomb of Saint David.

After thirty days of prayer and fasting he received the great schema; then he made a vow of silence, read the psalms daily, slept on a torn mat and wore an iron chain on his bare body, leaving his cell only for services. In 1690 a church council appointed him abbot of the David Gareja monastery. He restored the monastery's rights to lost estates and gained new ones, founded a large library and stirred the work of copying books. He built the church of Saint John the Evangelist, palaces, houses in the rock, walls with towers, the iconostasis and the church of Saints Peter and Paul in the village of Tvali. The building of the monastery wall took six years in his abbacy. The Church of Georgia venerates him as a saint; his feast is 12 October (new style; 29 September old style).