Polyeuctus (Karbelashvili)

Holy Confessor Polyeuctus (Karbelashvili) was an archpriest, scholar and collector of Georgian church chant, one of the five Karbelashvili brothers. He was born in 1855 at Kvemo Chala and studied at the seminaries in Gori and Tbilisi. He worked for the restoration of the autocephaly of the Church of Georgia and for the preservation of the Georgian language, culture and chant.

He wrote many books and articles, set the traditional chants in notation together with his brother Vasil, and gathered documents from churches and monasteries, including those of Svaneti. Many of the manuscripts he copied no longer survive, so his copies are the only record. He was a friend of Ilia Chavchavadze, Akaki Tsereteli and other notable people of his day. He died in 1936 and was buried at Gurjaani. The Church of Georgia canonized him, together with his brothers, on 20 December 2011.