Venerable Cosmas the Hieromonk, Chief of the Scribes, Slain by the Persians at Mravalmta (+1630)

The Venerable Cosmas the hieromonk was born around the 1590s. The deeply learned saint was tonsured a monk and laboured in the famous monastery of David Gareja.

The monastic complex founded by the Venerable David of Gareji was for centuries the centre of spiritual and cultural life for all Georgia.

The Georgian royal court always reckoned with the opinion of the fathers of Gareji.

The desert of Gareji was a most important hearth of books and letters. Here original works of a spiritual character were written, ancient Georgian manuscripts were copied, and new ones prepared.

The ascetics of Gareji compiled collections of original hagiographical monuments and of ascetic and homiletic works, and helped the literary schools attached to other monasteries.

Here the holy hieromonk Cosmas laboured. No biographical information about him has been preserved. Catholicos Anton tells us that Cosmas was a man guileless, sincere, a good scribe and a fine psalm-singer, “uttering wisdom and interpreting the writings fittingly”, and adds that in his youth he had seen him when he came to visit his mother.

Saint Cosmas wrote “A Praise of Queen Ketevan”, which has not come down to us.

According to Platon Ioseliani, the hieromonk Cosmas was seized by Leks who had come to plunder the desert, and they tortured him to death (+1630).