Презентация на тему The history of georgian civilization. (Lecture 6)

the New Transregional System and Order, Regional Competition between

the Great Powers

Spread of Christianity in Colchis/Lazica
Spread of Christianity in Iberia
Origins of Georgian Christianity
The Iberian Kingdom, Formation of Territorial State, King Vakhtang I, Gorgasali
Fall of the Kingdom of Iberia
Christianity and the growth of feudalism

early 1st century.
St. Andrew, St. Simon
the Canaanite, and

St. Matata-apostles
the Hellenistic, local pagan and Mithraic religious beliefs would be widespread until the 4th century.
In the early 4th century, the Christian eparchy of Pitiunt (Bichvinta ) was established in this kingdom.

St. Simon the Canaanite

Machelons,
Heniochi,
Lazica,
Apsilia,
Abasgia,
and Sanigia had occupied

the district form south to north.
The first Christian king of Lazica was Gubazes I;
in the 5th century, Christianity was made the official religion of Lazica.

looking for their new homes, raided Colchis in 253 AD, but

they were repulsed with the help of the Roman garrison of Pitiunt.
Germanic tribes known as “ Crimean Goths", the exact ethnic origin of the Germanic peoples in the Crimea is a subject of debate.

By the 3rd-4th centuries, most of the local small kingdoms and principalities had been conquered by the Lazic kings.

was a king of Iberia, The founder ofthe royal

Chosroid dynasty (306-337)
contemporaneous to the Roman emperor Constantine the Great ( 306–337).
The king's name, Mirian, is a Georgian adaptation of the Iranian "Mihran". The medieval Georgian records give other versions of his name, both in its original Iranian as well as closely related Georgian forms (Mirean, Mirvan).
Writing in Latin, the Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus (XXI.6.8) renders the name of his contemporary Iberian king as Meribanes.
Conversion of Kartli to Christianity identifies Mirian as the son of Lev, who is unattested elsewhere.

According to the medieval Georgian chronicle Life of the Kings, Mirian was a Persian prince married to an Iberian princess
Abeshura, daughter of the last Georgian Arsacid king Asparug from the Parnavazian dynasty.

an eminent Georgian historian considers Mirian a representative of

the local Iberian élite clan to whom the medieval tradition ascribed an exotic foreign royal ancestry to introduce him with more prestige.

Upon the death of Aspagur, Mirian was installed on the throne of Iberia by his father whom the medieval Georgian chronicles refer to as "K'asre" (Khosrau), Great King of Iran.
After the death of his first wife   Abeshura, he married Nana "from Pontus , daughter of Oligotos", who bore him two sons— Rev  and Varaz-Bakur—and a daughter, who married Peroz, the first  Mihranid  dynast of  Gogarene.

nobles converted to Christianity around 317/334
According to tradition, Mirian's

second wife, Nana , preceded her husband in conversion.

The event is related with the mission of a Cappadocian woman, Saint Nino, who in the year of 303, started preaching Christianity in Iberia.

attributed the conversion of the Georgians to Christianity, is

traditionally portrayed as a holy captive woman living about the year A.D. 330 , in the time of Constantine the Great.
According to custom, she was born in Cappadocia and became a slave. she belonged to a Greek-speaking Roman family from Kolastra, Cappadocia and was a relative of Saint George.

Nino came to Georgia from Constantinople. Other sources claim she was from Rome, Jerusalem or Gaul (modern France).  As the legend goes, she performed miraculous healings and converted the Georgian queen, Nana, and eventually the pagan king Mirian of Iberia, who, lost in darkness and blinded on a hunting trip, found his way only after he prayed to "Nino’s God".
Mirian declared Christianity the official religion (c. 327/337) and Nino continued her missionary activities among Georgians until her death.

build a church at Mtskheta.
Nino of Georgia- A Woman

Evangelist “, Equal to the Apostles”
Nino find the grapevine cross in her hand.  She tied the cross in her hair and began her missionary journey. 
The grapevine cross continues to be an important symbol of the Georgian Orthodox Church.

tie between Iberia  and
 Eastern Rome / Byzantine Empire and had a

large-scale impact on the state's culture and society.

From 363 King Varaz-Bakur I (Asphagur) (363-365) became a Persian vassal, an outcome confirmed by the Peace of Acilisene in 387.
Although a later ruler of Iberia/Kartli, Pharsman IV (406-409), preserved his country's autonomy and finished to pay tribute to Persia.

authorities
Sassanian kings  soon began to appoint their Viceroys (pitiaxae/bidaxae) to

keep watch on Iberia/Kartli.

The Persians eventually made Viceroyal office hereditary in the ruling house of Lower Kartli, thus inaugurating the Kartli pitiaxate bringing under their control quite an extensive territory.
Although it remained a part of the kingdom of Kartli, its viceroys turned their domain into a center of Persian influence.

authority
By the middle of the 5th century, Zoroastrianism became

a second official religion in eastern Georgia alongside Christianity.
Sassanian kings sent their priests to convert Iberians.

However, efforts to convert the common Georgian people were generally unsuccessful.

and a religious philosophy.
 the one God, Ahura Mazda

Vakhtang I, Gorgasali
Iberian king Vakhtang I also known as

Gorgasali (447-502) - the Wolf Head- possible reflection of the wolf cult in ancient Georgia
Beyond the Life of Vakhtang Gorgasali (hereinafter LVG), the medieval Georgian sources mention Vakhtang only briefly, yet with respect rarely afforded to the pre-Bagratid Georgian monarchs

princess Balendukht who died at childbirth , He married

Helena, "daughter" (possibly relative) of Emperor Zeno.
Received permission from Constantinople
 to elevate the head of the church of Iberia, the bishop of Mtskheta, to the rank of Catholicos

Newly appointed 12 bishops,
to be consecrated at Antioch eparchy.

the Persians.
He secured the northern borders by subjugating the

Caucasian mountaineers
Brought the neighboring western and southern Georgian lands under his control

He established an Autocephalic Patriarchate at Mtskheta
He made Tbilisi as a capital.

a general uprising against Sassanian Persia with Support of Byzantine

Empire.
Almost 20 years
the kingdom failed to gain active Byzantine support and was finally defeated in 502 when King Vakhtang was wounded in battle.

The wounded king was transported to his castle at Ujarma where he died and was interred at the cathedral in Mtskheta.
Javakhishvili puts Vakhtang’s death at c. 502.

between Byzantium and Persia for supremacy in the Caucasus,
and an unsuccessful rebellion of

the Iberians under King Gurgen that followed (523), had tragic consequences for the country.

In 580, Hormizd IV (578-590) abolished the monarchy after the death of King Bakur III, and Iberia became a Persian province ruled by a marzpan (governor).

late 6th century, Iberian nobles urged Byzantine Emperor Maurice to

restore the Kingdom of Iberia, and the independence was temporarily restored in 582.

591, Byzantium and Persia 
agreed to division Iberia, 
Tbilisi went to Persian, while  Mtskheta remaining under Byzantine control.

of the 7th century, the treaty between Byzantium and 

Persia collapsed.
The Iberian Prince Stephanoz I (ca. 590-627), decided in 607 to join forces with Persia in order to reunite all the provinces of Iberia under one crown, a goal he seemed to have accomplished.

Heraclius' armies in 627 and 628, resulted in the defeat of both Iberians and Persians and secured Byzantine dominance in the South Caucasus until the beginning of the Arab invasion.

(Champlevé enamel over gilt copper, 1160–1170, Paris, Louvre