Saint Tsotne Dadiani, Who Gave Himself for Georgia, and Confessor (XIII)
Saint Tsotne Dadiani — “a man honourable and virtuous and renowned in battle” — lived and laboured in the thirteenth century. At that time Georgia was suffering under the Mongol yoke. After the death of Queen Rusudan (1245) the Mongols imposed the heaviest tribute on the lords of Georgia and obliged them besides to take part in their wars. The country’s situation became so unbearable that the lords of Georgia resolved to fight the enemy with their forces united.
At the meeting appointed at Kokhtastavi the lords “confirmed the war and set a day for gathering in Kartli”. Tsotne Dadiani, “a good man, perfect in things divine and human”, and the eristavi of Racha went to gather their forces. As soon as the Tatars learned of the secret meeting of the Georgian lords, they at once made for Kokhtastavi, took captive all the Georgian nobles gathered there, and carried them off to the land of Ani, to Shirakavan.
The Georgians gave as the reason for their meeting the collection of tribute for the Mongols. The Mongols stripped the lords, bound their hands and feet, smeared their bodies with honey, and left them hungry and thirsty in the burning heat, asking them every day the reason for their meeting.
When at the appointed time Tsotne Dadiani arrived with his army and learned what had happened, “he was grieved beyond measure, and counted the thing his own death and shame, and sent away his army, and with two men went to Ani, laying down his life and confessing the commandment of the Lord”. Tsotne saw his brethren condemned to death; he leapt from his horse, took off his clothes, bound his own hands and feet and sat down beside them.
The Mongols asked Tsotne why he had come. “We all gathered for this: to apportion your tribute and to carry out your command — this was our gathering. Now you have counted us among the evildoers, and so I have come before you, that you may enquire; and if they have done anything worthy of death, let me die with them too, for without me they have done nothing; and if they are to live, let me be with them,” Tsotne answered.
Tsotne Dadiani’s self-sacrifice so worked upon the Mongols that they resolved to free the Georgians. “All the Georgians we grant to thee, and in thee we trust,” they said to Tsotne, and they set them all free.
In the rising against the Mongols of 1259 the name of Tsotne Dadiani no longer appears. It is supposed that by that time Tsotne Dadiani had already died.
In Georgia everyone knows of Tsotne Dadiani; his heroism has always been an example of faith, love and self-sacrifice, and the nation has always paid him the honour due to a saint.
The numbering of Tsotne Dadiani among the saints by the decree of the Holy Synod of 26 October 1999 was an expression of the will of the right-believing nation, and so all rejoiced at the appointing of a new heavenly intercessor.
