Prochorus the Iberian

Venerable Prochorus the Georgian (Prochorus the Iberian) was a Georgian monk, the founder of the Monastery of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem. He was born around 985 and died in 1066 (the birth and death dates 950 and 1066 on the record do not match the sources). He is venerated as a saint in the Orthodox Church, and his feast day is 12 February.

According to the Georgian Life of Prochorus, he was born in a Georgian land, in Tao-⁠Klarjeti (according to the Russian source), under the name George of Shavsheti, and was raised in a local monastery, where he became a monk and then a priest. Around 1010 to 1015, at the age of 30, he left for the Holy Land to live the monastic life and to study. He spent about ten years at the Lavra of Saint Sabbas, one of the most important monastic centres in the region, where he honed his ascetic practices and gained experience in monastic administration. Around 1020 he moved to Jerusalem to gather the Georgian monks scattered across the monasteries of Palestine and to strengthen the presence of Georgian monasticism in the Holy Land.

According to the Life, Prochorus built the Monastery of the Cross in 1064, by order of King Bagrat IV of Georgia, with donations carried to Jerusalem by George the Hagiorite. The monastery stood in the Valley of the Cross, a site linked to ancient Christian legends and even to a relic of the True Cross. Prochorus not only rebuilt and enlarged the monastery but also established a monastic rule and regimen modelled on the Lavra of Saint Sabbas, gathering nearly eighty monks under his guidance. He built a church adorned with ornaments and icons and a hostel for pilgrims.

In the fourteenth century the monastery became a major Georgian monastic and cultural centre in Jerusalem, hosting Georgian monks, scribes and clergy, and over the centuries it preserved Georgian liturgical traditions and manuscripts. By the late seventeenth century, because of financial difficulties, it passed under the jurisdiction of the Greek Patriarchate, although Georgian influence remained culturally significant. After completing his work in Jerusalem, Prochorus retired to the Arnon desert, where he spent his remaining years in solitude and died in 1066. Among his writings is a Menologion written in 1040 in the Nuskhuri script, preserved at the Bodleian Library, which shows Georgian liturgical practices, calligraphy and the transmission of Christian texts across cultural boundaries.