Saint Peter I, Catholicos (V)
Saint Peter was the first Catholicos of Kartli. From the 460s until the beginning of the sixth century he governed the Apostolic Church of Georgia. By the providence of God he began the line of catholicoi in Georgia.
Juansher, who wrote the Life of the holy King Vakhtang Gorgasali, tells that during his campaign in Byzantium King Vakhtang came to know and to be close to “Peter the priest, of the disciples of Gregory the Theologian” and the monk Samoel. The spiritual closeness of the holy king and the holy fathers, and later their wise and concerted work, did much to establish peaceful relations between Georgia and Byzantium and to bring about the autocephaly of the Apostolic Church of Georgia.
On his way back to Kartli after the campaign, King Vakhtang “sent an envoy to Byzantium to bring his wife, and Peter as catholicos, and Samoel as bishop”, and sent word that they should “send the catholicos and twelve bishops with speed”. The Patriarch of Constantinople agreed to the appointment of a catholicos in Kartli, and since at that time the holy Church of Kartli belonged to the Patriarchate of Antioch, he sent Saint Peter and Saint Samoel to Antioch, so that the Patriarch of Antioch himself might consecrate Peter as catholicos and Samoel as bishop. After their consecration the catholicos and the bishops came to Kartli, and from this time the self-government (autocephaly) of the Apostolic Church of Georgia begins.
The holy Catholicos Peter ordered the government of the Church on the principle of an autocephalous Church, and shaped the form of self-government that afterwards strengthened still further the standing of the Apostolic Church of Georgia among the Churches of the various countries of the world. The mutual respect of the holy catholicos and the holy king, and their concerted care for the interests of faith and nation, laid the foundation for that form of harmonious relations between secular and spiritual authority which shapes the standing of the Church in the country, and the people’s love and loyalty towards a God-blessed secular authority.
Saint Peter was with Saint Vakhtang Gorgasali during the war with the Persians. When King Vakhtang, mortally wounded in battle, “knew of his own death, he called the catholicos, his wife and his sons and all the nobles”. Saint Peter heard the holy king’s last confession, blessed Dachi, the son of Saint Vakhtang Gorgasali, as king, and to the end of his life governed wisely the Apostolic Autocephalous Church of Georgia.
