Saint Iotam Zedgenidze (+1465)

Saint Iotam Zedgenidze was the son of an aznaur, known for his courage, his faith and his loyalty to the king. Brought up in piety, the saint understood well that loyalty to the anointed king meant love for the country and the holy Church. In 1446 George VIII, son of Alexander the Great, was anointed king of Georgia. He, “perfect and adorned with every good thing, divine and military”, gave the twenty years of his reign to the struggle to preserve the unity of the country. In his reign “God was angry with the Christians for the sins of us Christians, and Sultan Mehmed took Constantinople”.

Meanwhile the situation in Georgia grew tense again. Qvarqvare, atabeg of Samtskhe, rebelled against the king. And in 1463, after the victory at Chikhori, Bagrat, the governor of Kutaisi, proclaimed himself king of Imereti.

In 1465 King George set out for Samtskhe to make war on the atabeg Qvarqvare, “that he might take vengeance on the atabeg”. To George, encamped by Lake Paravani, “the rebels sent traitors to kill him and his household”. Iotam Zedgenidze, who was in the king’s suite, learned of the terrible plot against the king and warned him. “The king did not believe it,” writes Vakhushti in “The Life of Kartli”, “since treachery against the king from them was unthinkable.” When the loyal courtier could not convince the upright and guileless king of the treachery of his lying subjects, he proposed: “If I am deceived and my word is not true, yet I beseech thee not to be killed in vain; but this night I will lie in thy bed, and if they kill me, taking me for the king — only do not forget my sons.” The king agreed, though he was quite sure that the cause of Iotam Zedgenidze’s suspicion was love and loyalty and that no danger threatened him. “That night the suborned men came in and killed Iotam, and the king was delivered from them.”

In the morning, when George went into the royal tent, his beloved courtier lay in a pool of blood. He mourned Iotam with contrition, while he seized the enemies and “put them all to death”. The grateful king heaped favours on the descendants of Saint Iotam Zedgenidze.

The Church of Georgia numbered among the saints Iotam, who gave himself for the anointed of the Lord, the king appointed by God.