Phocas of Mesukevi

Holy Martyr Phocas of Mesukevi was a Georgian, one of the sixteen companions of the holy martyr Suchius, who died as martyrs on Mount Sukaketi. They were great nobles at the court of the ruler of Caucasian Albania, a state on the territory of today's Azerbaijan.

Accompanying Satenik, the daughter of the ruler of Albania and wife of the king of Armenia Artaxias (88-123), Suchius and his sixteen companions came to Artashat, the ancient capital of Armenia. There the Christian Greek Chrysos was preaching, enlightened and ordained priest by the holy Apostle Thaddeus. The nobles believed in the Saviour and resolved to devote all their lives to the service of God. All seventeen Georgians followed Chrysos to Mesopotamia. At the baptism in the waters of the Euphrates, performed by the priest Chrysos, they were counted worthy to see the Lord of Glory, Jesus Christ. At the place of baptism they set up an honoured cross, called the Cross of the Annunciation. At baptism Chrysos gave them new names: to the eldest, Suchius (in place of Bagadras), and to the companions Andrew, Anastasius, Talale, Theodoret, Ivkhirion, Jordan, Condrat, Lucian, Mimnenos, Nerangios, Polyeuctus, James, Phocas, Domentian, Victor and Zosima.

After the martyr's end of the blessed Chrysos, Suchius became the spiritual guide of the brotherhood. Soon all moved to a wild place, on Mount Sukaketi, near the mountain village of Bagrevandi, where the former nobles led a most strict ascetic life, with food of the scanty mountain greens and drink of cold spring water. The new ruler of pagan Albania, Datianos, learning that his former nobles had accepted Christianity, sent his close companion Barnabas with soldiers to persuade them to return to the court and to their former faith. Barnabas found Suchius and his companions, but they, keeping their vow of service to God, rejected all the urging.

Then, by order of Barnabas, Suchius and his companions were nailed to the ground in the form of a cross and burned. As he was dying, Saint Condrat, and then the others, began to sing Psalm 21. After the burning their bodies were hacked in pieces and scattered over all Mount Sukaketi, whence the martyrs received the name of Mesukevi, more correctly Sukaketi. This took place in the year 123, according to other data in 130, and an eleventh-⁠century parchment manuscript of the Iveron Monastery on Athos 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 saints were found inscribed on the rock. Saint Gregory the Illuminator of Armenia, a hieromartyr, built a church on that place and founded a monastery, and later a healing spring opened there. The martyrs are commemorated on 28 April.