Saint Melchizedek I (XI)

The holy Catholicos-Patriarch Melchizedek governed the Apostolic Autocephalous Church of Georgia from about 1010 to 1030, in the reigns of Kings Bagrat III, George I and Bagrat IV. The saint took the throne of the catholicos after the death of Catholicos Symeon. Saint Melchizedek is the first head of the Apostolic Church of Georgia to be named with the title of Catholicos-Patriarch.

According to “The Chronicle of Kartli”, Saint Melchizedek was “the son of great men”, brought up by King Bagrat II. During his time as catholicos Saint Melchizedek built and adorned the cathedral of Svetitskhoveli: the saint “went to Constantinople, before Basil, the king of the Greeks”, to ask for help, and on returning to his homeland with great treasure “he began to build the outer gates and the surrounding porticoes, with masonry and roofing, and he finished it all”. Besides this the catholicos adorned Svetitskhoveli “with every adornment, with gold and silver, with precious stones and pearls”.

Saint Melchizedek visited Byzantium several times, and, as historians have supposed, it was during these visits that the Eastern patriarchs confirmed the title of Catholicos-Patriarch for the head of the Apostolic Church of Georgia.

His Holiness and Beatitude Melchizedek I, Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia, died in 1030. He is buried on the right side of Svetitskhoveli, by the entrance to the chapel of Saint Elijah the Tishbite.

History has preserved the testament drawn up by Saint Melchizedek — “A Record for the See of Mtskheta” — which gives the full list of the objects, churches, monasteries and villages that the Catholicos-Patriarch offered to Svetitskhoveli at Mtskheta. It is in this testament that the head of the Church of Georgia is first named Catholicos-Patriarch, and from the same document we learn that Melchizedek I made himself a place of burial in Svetitskhoveli: “To the south of the diaconicon, in the martyrium of the holy martyrs, I have made my grave and set up an altar, and at this altar I have appointed my foster-son John to celebrate the Liturgy for my sinful soul” (Catholicos-Patriarch John V (Okropiri), +1049).

Saint Melchizedek was canonised on 17 October 2002.