Zosima of Mesukevi

Holy Martyr Zosima of Mesukevi (of Georgia) was one of the seventeen Georgians of the company of Saint Sukhius, burned by pagans on the mountain Sukaketi in the second century.

Sukhius and his sixteen companions were great nobles at the court of the ruler of Caucasian Albania. Accompanying the ruler's daughter, Satenik, wife of the Armenian king Artaxias (88-123), they came to Artashat. There the Christian Greek Chrysos was preaching, a priest ordained by the holy Apostle Thaddeus. The nobles believed in the Savior and followed Chrysos into Mesopotamia, where at baptism in the Euphrates they were found worthy to see the Lord of Glory. Chrysos gave them new names, and the last of them was named Zosimas. After the martyrdom of Chrysos, Sukhius led the brotherhood, which moved to the mountain Sukaketi and lived there in strict asceticism. The new ruler, Datianos, sent Barnabas and soldiers to bring them back. They refused, and by the order of Barnabas they were nailed to the ground in the form of a cross and burned. Dying, Quadratus and the others sang the 21st psalm. Their bodies were cut up and scattered over the mountain, from which comes the name "of Mesukevi" (according to some, Sukaketi). This happened in the year 123 (by other accounts 130; an Athonite manuscript of the eleventh century gives the year 100). The remains lay unburied and incorrupt until the fourth century; Saint Gregory the Illuminator built a church and a monastery there.

Saint Zosimas is commemorated on 28 April and, in the new style, on 22 November (movable) in the Synaxis of the Saints of Alania.