IVANE JAVAKHISHVILI AND THE PROBLEMS OF THE HISTORY OF THE GEORGIAN CHURCH

Abstract

Ivane Javakhishvili, a great Georgian historian, was among the first to investigate the scientific history of the Georgian Orthodox Church. Despite his critical attitude toward some Georgian historical sources, he was the first to reconstruct the history of the Georgian Church from the first to the eighteenth centuries using numerous Georgian and foreign sources. He thoroughly studied the sources available on the apostolic activity of St. Andrew and St. Nino in Georgia and the significance of declaring Christianity the state religion; he clarified its chronology, and reconstructed the history of the Great Church Schism, the Georgian Church’s autocephaly, the preparation of myrrh in Mtskheta, the unification of the Catholicates of Mtskheta and Abkhazia, and the peculiarities of Georgian monastic life. The scholar stressed the importance of Gregory of Khandzta, George the Hagiorite, and David Agmashenebeli in the history of the Georgian Church. The struggle of the Georgian Church in the middle centuries to strengthen the Georgian state and ecclesiastic consciousness was extremely important for Ivane Javakhishvili; chastised the kings and princes of Meskheti and then West Georgia for attempting to separate Mtskheta from the Catholicate (of all Georgia) in the 70s and 80s of the fifteenth century, and dubbed the initiators of the case the gravediggers of Georgia. The scholar rebuked the abolition of Eastern and then, Western Catholicates of Georgia and establishing the Exarchate ruling by Emperor Alexander I of Russia in 1811-12. At the beginning of the twentieth century, he actively participated in discussions on Church matters concerning the autocephaly of the Georgian Church in St. Petersburg; he welcomed the restoration of the Georgian Church’s autocephaly and specially invited Catholicos-Patriarch Kirion II to the Georgian University’s opening ceremony. He held high regard for Catholicos-Patriarchs of Georgia Ambrosius and Callistratus. His contribution to the study of the history of the Georgian Church is invaluable and should be duly appreciated.