Hieromartyr Dositheus of Tbilisi (+1795)

Saint Dositheus of Tbilisi ended his life as a martyr on 12 (25) September 1795.

Because of its geopolitical position Georgia was constantly subjected to the aggression of enemies.

In 1795 the Iranians again set out to make war on Georgia with an army of thirty-five thousand. King Erekle, “greatly grieved at the smallness of his army”, himself took command of the host, but in the unequal battle the Georgians were defeated. The king, with a suite of a hundred and fifty men, almost all of them wounded, barely escaped captivity. Having reached safety, he saw how the bodies of those who had given themselves for the homeland were being trampled and how the lawless were entering the capital. He turned his horse back, wishing to die fighting the enemy, but they would not let him go and took him across the river by force. Having crossed the bridge, the king commended Georgia to Saint Abo. On the night of 11 September the whole of Tbilisi was wrapped in flames; the inhabitants were plundered and killed, the libraries were set on fire, the printing house was wrecked, the churches were plundered, and the palace of King Erekle too was plundered. The lawless killed the clergy with special cruelty, cutting off their heads and throwing their holy bodies into the Mtkvari.

After the plunder of the city and the slaughter of the inhabitants, the enemies seized Saint Dositheus, Metropolitan of Tbilisi, inflicted many sword wounds on him, and brought him to the bank of the Mtkvari together with other captive clergy.

No torments could break the faith of the servants of God: Saint Dositheus and all his clergy chose death for Christ. The lawless threw the clergy, bound hand and foot, into the river one by one, while to Saint Dositheus “they granted a hierarch’s indulgence”: the hierarch, already brought to the point of death by torture, was thrown into the Mtkvari unbound.