Saint Ekvtime the Man of God (Takaishvili)
Saint Ekvtime the Man of God (Takaishvili) was born on 3 January 1863. While he was very small his father, Simon Takaishvili, died, and when he was five his mother as well. At about three he fell from a tree and broke his leg; no proper doctor could be found for him, and he was lame for the rest of his life.
At seven Ekvtime was sent to the Ozurgeti district school. In this school the Law of God was taught by the well-known teacher Archpriest Simon Kikodze, brother of the eminent Georgian figure the holy Bishop Gabriel. Simon Kikodze made an indelible impression on Ekvtime. He read to his pupils the works of Ilia Chavchavadze, Akaki Tsereteli and other Georgian writers, and taught them poems.
While studying in Ozurgeti, Ekvtime Takaishvili and the later famous scholar Nicholas Marr became close. This acquaintance afterwards grew into a great friendship.
From Ozurgeti Ekvtime was moved to the Poti district school, and then to the Kutaisi gymnasium. In 1883 he finished the gymnasium and went to St Petersburg to study at the university. There he enrolled in the Faculty of History and Philology. In 1887 he graduated from the university and set out for Georgia. In Georgia he began to teach. He taught Greek and Latin, history and geography. In 1887–94 he was at the Tbilisi school for the nobility and the classical gymnasium. In 1894–1904 he directed the gymnasium for the nobility.
With all his heart Ekvtime Takaishvili collected Georgia’s antiquities: manuscripts, archaeological material, examples of folk craft. He sought to study and work on them scientifically. He became close to the renowned scholar Dimitri Bakradze and finally decided to become a historian — a noble but heavy task. He came close to Dimitri Bakradze at a time when the monuments of Georgia’s past were scattered and doomed to perish. “At that time,” E. Takaishvili recalls, “the main aim of my work was already clear to me: as far as possible and as far as circumstances allowed, to gather material for the history and archaeology of Georgia; to help with all my strength to save the monuments from ruin and loss; to publish as many as I could and make them accessible to researchers...”
Saint Ekvtime the Man of God worked actively in the “Society for the Spreading of Literacy among Georgians”. While still a student he was a member of the society’s board. After returning to Georgia he threw himself with all his strength into the work of the “Society”. He travelled through the different parts of the country and helped schools and reading rooms; he gathered precious books, antiquities of every kind, charters and historical documents.
In 1907 Ekvtime Takaishvili founded the Georgian Historical and Ethnographic Society, of which he was chairman until 1921 (until he left for emigration), and carried on wide archaeological work. Under his direction a burial ground of the pre-Christian era was excavated in the Debeda gorge, in the village of Vornak. He did great service in gathering and preserving the Akhalgori treasure. He followed the trail of those who had bought and resold this treasure; he managed to bring together most of it and to house it in the Caucasian Museum. Ekvtime Takaishvili’s journeys in southern Georgia were of great importance. The first expedition was organised in 1902. The architect Svimon Kldiashvili and the photographer Alexander Mamuchaishvili took part in it. The architectural monuments of the Akhaltsikhe and Akhalkalaki districts, and of the Artaani and Olti districts, were studied. In 1907 Ekvtime Takaishvili investigated the churches and monasteries of the Kola area of the Artaani district and completed the study of the churches and monasteries of the Olti district. With him on the expedition were the architect Alexander Kalgin and the photographer Eduard Liozen. Of particular importance was the expedition Ekvtime Takaishvili organised in 1917. They studied the churches of Khakhuli, Oshki, Ekeki and others, the church of Otkhta, the fortress of Tortum and more. Ekvtime Takaishvili discovered and copied many precious inscriptions. He established the names of some monasteries that had until then been unknown. He studied wall paintings, repoussé icons, church vessels and miniatures.
Ekvtime Takaishvili took an active part in the founding of Tbilisi University. Not one organisational question, from drawing up the university’s statute down to the smallest details, was settled without Ekvtime. He was the university’s first professor. On 21 May 1918 the university council conferred on him the degree of doctor.
The last years of his life
In 1921, immediately after the Soviet government came, the Menshevik government went into emigration — to France. The government decided not to leave to anyone Georgia’s museum objects and treasures, this great fruit of the creativity of the Georgian people. Ekvtime Takaishvili was appointed guardian of the treasure. The treasure was taken to France. From 1921 to 1945 Ekvtime Takaishvili lived in France and fulfilled with dignity the duty of guardian of the treasure. The preservation of Georgia’s treasury in very difficult conditions was the fruit of his very great strength of will and self-sacrificing effort. He withstood the pressure of the museums of England and the USA (they wanted to buy a certain part of the treasure; in return the British Museum promised to keep the rest of the treasure free of charge), he withstood the terrible years of the Second World War, when the Germans could have carried the treasure off from occupied France. Neither hunger, nor humiliation, nor extremely hard economic circumstances broke him, and in 1945 he brought the whole treasure back to Georgia without loss.
Having returned to his homeland in 1945, the aged scholar wrote: “I have some two years of life left and, happily, I am to spend them again in my homeland... I will use them to pay to the end the debt that remains on me: I will try to leave not one monument that has been in my hands or that I have examined unpublished, the more so since many of them have already fallen victim to time.”
Time went on... The years did their work... In his deep old age Ekvtime was also under spiritual trial. The authorities, it seems, harboured certain suspicions of every émigré. The old man found himself in a kind of isolation, but he still went on with his work undaunted — paying his debt to his country and his people.
Ekvtime Takaishvili died in February 1953 and rests in the Mtatsminda pantheon of writers and public figures.
On 17 October 2002 the Holy Synod of the Georgian Orthodox Church numbered Ekvtime Takaishvili among the saints and gave him the name of Saint Ekvtime the Man of God. In May 2003 the house-museum and chapel of Saint Ekvtime were opened in Tbilisi. 3 January was appointed as the day of commemoration of Ekvtime the Man of God.
“Readings for Young People”, vol. 6, Tbilisi, 2002.
The service of Saint Ekvtime the Man of God (Takaishvili) to the Church of Georgia
