Nino | |
|---|---|
 Icon of Saint Nino | |
| Equal to the Apostles and the Enlightener ofGeorgia | |
| Born | c. 288 Kolastra,Cappadocia |
| Died | January 14, 338[b] Bodbe,Kakheti (modern-dayGeorgia) |
| Venerated in | Eastern Orthodox Church Catholic Church Oriental Orthodox Churches |
| Majorshrine | Bodbe Monastery |
| Feast | Entering Kartli May 19 (Roman Catholic) June 1 (Eastern Orthodox) Death January 14 (Roman Catholic) January 27 (Eastern Orthodox) |
| Attributes | Grapevine cross |
| Patronage | Georgia |
Saint Nino (sometimesSt. Nune orSt. Ninny;Georgian:წმინდა ნინო,romanized:ts'minda nino;Armenian:Սուրբ Նունե,romanized: Surb Nune;Greek:Ἁγία Νίνα,romanized: Hagía Nína; c. 296 – c. 338 or 340) was a woman who preachedChristianity in the territory of theKingdom of Iberia in what is nowGeorgia. Her preaching resulted in theChristianization of Iberia.
According to most traditional accounts, she belonged to aGreek-speaking Roman family from Kolastra,Cappadocia, was a relative ofSaint George,[3] and came to Iberia fromConstantinople. Other sources[which?] claim she was fromRome,Jerusalem orGaul (modern France).[citation needed]
At the age of 14, she was alady-in-waiting to a woman whom King Diocletian wanted to marry though the woman was a Christian, and did not want to marry him. St. Nino, the woman, and the rest of her ladies in waiting fled, and all were slaughtered but Nino, who hid in a rose bush. She had a vision of the Mother Of God, the Most Holy Virgin Theotokos, giving her a cross and telling her to go to Iberia to spread the gospel. When she awoke, there was a cross on her chest. She cut some of her hair to fasten the cross, took it into villages in Iberia and converted the whole country.
According to legend, she performed miraculous healings and converted the Georgian queen,Nana, and eventually the pagan kingMirian III 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 as the official religion of his kingdom (c. 327), and Nino continued her missionary activities amongGeorgians until her death.
Her tomb is still shown at theBodbe Monastery inKakheti, eastern Georgia. She has become one of the most venerated saints of theGeorgian Orthodox Church and her attribute, agrapevine cross, is a symbol ofGeorgian Christianity.
She was namedChristina by Rufin andTheognasta by Byzantines.[4]
Many sources agree that Nino was born in the small town of Colastri, in theRoman province ofCappadocia, although a smaller number of sources disagree with this. Regarding her family and origin, theRoman Catholic Church and theEastern Orthodox Church have different traditions.
According to the Eastern Orthodox Church tradition, she was the only child of a famous family. Her father wasRoman general Zabulon (Zebulun) and her mother Susanna (Sosana, Susan). On her father's side, Nino was related toSt. George, and on her mother's side, to the patriarch of Jerusalem, Houbnal I.
During her childhood, Nino was brought up by the nun Niofora-Sarah ofBethlehem.[5] Nino's uncle, who was thepatriarch of Jerusalem, oversaw her traditional upbringing. Nino went toRome with the help of her uncle, where she decided to preach the Christian gospel in Iberia, known to her as the resting place of Christ's tunic. According to the legend, Nino received a vision where theVirgin Mary gave her a grapevine cross and said:
She woke up from that vision with the cross in her hands and she tied the cross together with her own hair. Shortly afterward, Nino entered the Iberian Kingdom inCaucasus from theKingdom of Armenia, where she escaped persecution at the hands of the Armenian KingTiridates III. She had belonged to a community of virgins numbering 35,[6] along with martyrHripsime, under the leadership ofSt. Gayane, who preached Christianity in the Armenian Kingdom. They were all, with the exception of Nino, tortured and beheaded by Tiridates. All 35 of the virgins were soon canonised by theArmenian Apostolic Church, including Nino (as St. Nune).
In contrast, the Roman Catholic tradition, as narrated byRufinus of Aquileia, says that Nino was brought to Iberia not by her own will, but as a slave and that her family tree is obscure.[7]
Nino reached the borders of the ancient GeorgianKingdom of Iberia from the south about 320. There she placed a Christian cross in the small town ofAkhalkalaki and started preaching the Christian faith inUrbnisi and finally reachedMtskheta, the capital of Iberia. The Iberian Kingdom had been influenced by the neighbouringPersian Empire, which played an important role as the regional power in the Caucasus. Iberian King Mirian III and his nation worshiped thesyncretic godsArmazi andZaden. Soon after the arrival of Nino in Mtskheta, Nana, the Queen of Iberia requested an audience with the Cappadocian.
Queen Nana, who suffered from a severe illness, had some knowledge of Christianity but had not yet converted to it. Nino, restoring the Queen's health, won to herself disciples from the Queen's attendants, including a Jewish priest and his daughter,Abiathar and Sidonia. Nana also officially converted to Christianity and was baptized by Nino herself. Mirian, aware of his wife's religious conversion, was intolerant of her new faith, persecuting it and threatening to divorce his wife if she did not leave the faith.[8] He secluded himself, however, from Nino and the growing Christian community in his kingdom. His isolation to Christianity did not last long because, according to the legend, on a hunting trip, he was suddenly struck blind as total darkness emerged in the woods. In a desperate state, King Mirian uttered a prayer to the God of St Nino:
As soon as he finished his prayer, light appeared, and the king hastily returned to his palace in Mtskheta. As a result of this miracle, the King of Iberia renounced idolatry under the teaching of Nino and was baptized as the first Christian King of Iberia. Soon, the whole of his household and the inhabitants of Mtskheta adopted Christianity. In 326, King Mirian made Christianity the state religion of his kingdom, the oldest Christian state after Armenia.
After adopting Christianity, Mirian sent an ambassador toByzantium to ask EmperorConstantine I to have a bishop and priests sent to Iberia. Constantine, having learned of Iberia's conversion to Christianity, granted Mirian the new church land in Jerusalem[10] and sent a delegation of bishops to the court of the Georgian King. RomanhistorianTyrannius Rufinus inHistoria Ecclesiastica writes about Mirian's request to Constantine:
In 334, Mirian commissioned the building of the first Christian church in Iberia which was finally completed in 379 on the spot where now stands theSvetitskhoveli Cathedral in Mtskheta.
Nino, having witnessed the conversion of Iberia to Christianity, withdrew to the mountain pass in Bodbe,Kakheti. St Nino died soon after; immediately after her death, King Mirian commenced with the building of monastery inBodbe, where her tomb can still be seen in the churchyard.
The Georgian name isNune inArmenian. Her history as the only one of the 35 nuns of the company of the saints Gayane andHripsime to escape the slaughter at the hands of the pagan Armenian KingTiradates III in 301 is recounted in the history ofMovses Khorenatsi.
The Phoka Convent of St. Nino was established in rural Georgia by Abbess Elizabeth and two novices. They originally lived in a nearby house owned by Georgian Orthodox Church headPatriarch Ilia II and in 1992 moved to the site of an 11th-century church to restore it.
The Sacred Monastery of Saint Nina is the home of a monastic community ofGeorgian Apostolic Orthodox Christian nuns in the Patriarchate of Georgia's North American Diocese. It is located inUnion Bridge, Maryland, USA, and was established in September 2012.[12]
Nino and its variants remain the most popular name for women and girls in theRepublic of Georgia. There are currently 88,442 women over the age of 16 with that name residing in the country, according to theGeorgian Ministry of Justice. It also continues to be a popular name for baby girls.[13]
Her parents Zabulon and Susanna were canonised in 1997.[14]
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