Three Hundred Laz Martyrs

The Three Hundred Laz Martyrs are a synaxis of Christians of the Laz people put to death by the Ottomans for faith in Christ in the region of Lazistan, in what is now north-⁠eastern Turkey, in the seventeenth century, for refusing to renounce Christianity. They are saints of the Georgian Orthodox Church, canonized in 2003. They are commemorated on 29 April by the old calendar (12 May by the new) according to the Russian and Greek sources; the English source gives, as the day of the Georgian Church, 18 September (10 October by the old calendar).

Sources and dating

News of them has survived chiefly in oral tradition, and the sources disagree on the date: the English source puts the killing between 1600 and 1620 (our summary says 1620), the Russian in the middle and second half of the seventeenth century, in a time of forcible Islamization by the Ottoman authorities, and the Greek at 1600-1602 for the core of three hundred and the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries for the whole multitude of martyrs. The Russian source says scholars date the events to the second half of the seventeenth century. The figure three hundred is that of the Georgian sources and is tied to the group of warriors. The Greek tradition speaks of "thirty thousand martyrs from Georgia", that is, of numbers closer to the reckoning of the whole martyrdom; the difference between figures comes from the fact that Georgian sources name a particular unit of three hundred heroes, while the Greek ones include numbers close to the total of the martyrs.

The tradition

Lazistan is part of the heart of Colchis, the ancient home of Georgian culture, and it is said that the Holy Apostle Andrew began his preaching to the Georgian nation from there. After the fall of the Byzantine Empire and of Trebizond (1453 and 1461), the Ottomans tried for three centuries to extinguish Christianity and national consciousness among the Laz. The Catholic Church also intensified its missionary work in the region. Caught between these two fires, the Laz defended their Orthodox faith steadfastly, but in time some went over to the Catholics and the Monophysites, and most later lost their religious and national consciousness. The Laz who forcibly accepted Islam kept their language, a part of their cultural traditions, the memory of the Christianity of their ancestors and love for Georgia.

According to a widespread version, recorded early in the twentieth century by the Georgian historian Z. Chichinadze from the account of a Muslim Laz, H. Hodja, the inhabitants of several villages refused to accept Islam and were therefore put to death. The three hundred Laz warriors, who had risen against the forced conversion of the Laz to Islam and camped on a mountain, were captured by the enemy, who promised them freedom and earthly honors if they renounced Christianity. The Laz, famed for bravery in battle, showed great religious strength. All three hundred were beheaded. Their bodies were thrown into the river or the sea, and their heads set on stakes and displayed to terrify other Christians, according to the Russian source. The place received the name Dudikvati, "beheading" in the Laz language, and the same name was given to the river reddened by the martyrs' blood; a local proverb says that even if they cut off your head, they will not cut off your soul. The clergy of the men's monastery on a second mountain were put to death in a similar way, after various torments, by beheading, and the mountain was named Papati, "hill of the priests" (Laz "papa" means priest, monk). The names of Mount Dudikvati and Mount Papati near today's village of Esenkyoy (the old name Abuisla) also keep the memory of what took place.

Canonization and veneration

The Holy Synod of the Georgian Orthodox Church canonized in 2003 the Orthodox priests and laity beheaded on the hills of Papati and Dudikvati and all the Laz martyrs. The sources disagree on the day: the Russian gives 18 August 2003, the Greek 18 September 2003. The Russian Church entered their commemoration in its calendar on 23 December 2003. The decision was taken after Laz from Turkey brought to the Synod, with the blessing of Patriarch Ilia II, material on the martyrdom of thousands of Laz in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and after the return to the Christian faith of the Laz living in Georgia. On 6 February 2007, on Mount Sarpismta near the village of Sarpi, on the Turkish border, Metropolitan Demetrius (Shiolashvili) of Batumi and Kobuleti blessed the foundation stone of a men's monastery in honor of the Laz martyrs.