Venerable Zabulon and Susanna, Parents of Saint Nino, Equal-to-the-Apostles (IV)

Saints Zabulon and Susanna were the parents of Saint Nino.

Saint Zabulon was born in Cappadocia around 280. Saint Zabulon’s parents were deeply believing Christians. At that time many Kartvelian tribes lived in Cappadocia. Scholars suppose that Saint Zabulon was of a Georgian tribe. It is thought that the holy Great Martyr George was the son of Saint Zabulon’s sister. As the sources tell us, at the time of Saint George’s martyrdom there came to Rome “a certain man, like unto the princes, a servant of God named Zabulon”, and he entered the service of the Roman emperor’s army; he soon became renowned as a skilful horseman and a peerless warrior. In the war with the Franks “the Lord gave strength to Zabulon”: he captured the king of the Franks and his princes and brought them to the Roman emperor. The emperor passed sentence of death on the captives.

Under the influence of Saint Zabulon’s preaching the captives asked for Christian baptism before their death. Zabulon asked the emperor to grant the captives’ last wish. Those condemned to death “were baptised under the hand of Zabulon”. Saint Zabulon asked mercy for his godchildren, and the emperor granted him the lives of his spiritual children.

Through Saint Zabulon’s labours the whole of France as it then was received the holy baptism of Christ. An unknown ninth-century Georgian hymnographer writes in praise of Saint Nino: “Zabulon her father converted the Franks by the sword, but blessed Nino converted the Georgians by the life-giving Cross.”

Saint Zabulon went to Jerusalem to worship at the holy places. There he distributed all his possessions to the poor and began to serve Juvenal, Patriarch of Jerusalem. The patriarch gave his sister Susanna in marriage to Zabulon, “the father and font” of the Franks, “perfect in the fear of God and in wisdom”. Saints Zabulon and Susanna went to Zabulon’s homeland, Cappadocia. Here a daughter, Nino, was born to them, and they brought her up in the fear of God and in love, “in the service of the poor”.

When Nino turned twelve, her parents sold everything and went to Jerusalem. Zabulon received the blessing of Patriarch Juvenal and went into the desert to labour there, “where his abode is known to God”. Saint Susanna — “the mother of the holy Nino the patriarch appointed to serve poor and infirm women”. Information about Saint Nino’s parents has been preserved only by Georgian sources.

On 10 (23) December 1996, at a session of the Holy Synod of the Church of Georgia, the following decision was adopted:

“In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen!

The parents of Saint Nino, the enlightener of the Georgian nation, Zabulon and Susanna, when the pagan faith held sway and many were suffering for Christ, were open confessors of the true God and baptisers of many, and afterwards, leaving all their possessions, followed God: Zabulon in the desert, and Susanna in the service of the poor.

The Holy Synod of the Church of Georgia decrees that the parents of Saint Nino, for the upbringing of the Equal-to-the-Apostles and for their God-pleasing ascetic life, be numbered among the saints and be called: Zabulon — the Venerable Father Zabulon, and Susanna — the Venerable Mother Susanna.”