Today we speak of a wonderful monastic saint that originated in the Georgian Church. His name was Giorgi of the Holy Mountain. Giorgi had very pious parents who raised him in the faith. In fact, at the age of seven, they sent him to a convent where he was under the instruction of the abbess until he was ten years old.

When he was ten, one of the princes of the Georgian Church took an interest in him, but unfortunately the Emperor Basil of Constantinople—and that part of Georgia was under the rule of Constantinople at that time—began to think that somehow the prince had been engaging in traitorous activities and had him beheaded. Well, this affected Giorgi as you can imagine, but the wife of the prince still kept him under her care, and established him in schools where he learned the art of rhetoric, of philosophy, and many other things.

After this time had passed, he decided to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem dressed only in rags. On his way, he encountered another famous saint, also of the same name, Giorgi the Recluse. Giorgi took Giorgi under his care for the next three years, teaching him all the important things he needed to know to put the icing on the cake of his monastic life. At the end of this time, he sent him off to Jerusalem to complete that pilgrimage.

After this, Giorgi returned back to Georgia and established[himself at] a monastery there for a time until he went to Mt. Athos at the famous Iviron Monastery, a recommendation by his elder. The monks at Iviron Monastery were very excited to have Giorgi in their midst, because they knew of his education and they were extremely hopeful that he would be able to translate many Greek theological texts into Georgian. Well, Giorgi got there, but something happened to him. All of a sudden, the fire and the spirit that he had for the monastic life left him, and he became very slothful. In fact, he was so slothful that he remained as a novice for seven whole years. At the end of that time, his elder, having heard about all of this, sent one of his disciples to see Giorgi on Mt. Athos and to rebuke him and to remind him why he had come there in the first place.

Evidently, this had its intended effect, and Giorgi became a model monk at Iviron Monastery, eventually assuming the abbacy itself, and leading to a renaissance in that monastery’s intellectual activities, which is something that Giorgi had really desired all the time. He became so noted that the catholicos-patriarch of Georgia, as well as the emperor at the time, wanted him to come back and become bishop to take over a certain diocese. Well, Giorgi felt that he was not worthy of this task, and so he refused it, although eventually they were able to entice him to return home for a while, where he reinvigorated many of the churches there and led other souls to great spiritual heights by his own example.

Eventually, however, Giorgi returned to the Holy Mountain and to the monastery of Iviron. He there served as the abbot for many years, finally reposing just after the year 1000, and led a splendid spiritual life for all to emulate. He did not seek worldly honors while he was there; he turned down many important positions while he was there. Yet at the same time he did exercise the gifts that God had given him in order to create manuscripts and reliquaries and many other things for the monastery that are there to that day.

So it’s important for us to realize that in our own lives we can attain to some of the peaceableness and quiet that St. Giorgi desired, but that we should also exercise the gifts that God has given us, although always in all humility and with a grateful spirit to our Creator.