Saint Nino


Saint Nino was a woman who preached Christianity in the territory of the Kingdom of Iberia in what is now Georgia. Her preaching led to the Christianization of Iberia.
According to most traditional accounts, she belonged to a Greek-speaking Roman family from Kolastra, Cappadocia, was a relative of Saint George, and came to Iberia from Armenia (antiquity)|Armenia].
At the age of 14, Nino served as a lady-in-waiting to a Christian noblewoman whom Diocletian wished to marry. The woman refused, and Nino, together with her mistress and other attendants, fled to avoid persecution. All were killed except Nino, who survived by hiding. According to tradition, she then received a vision of the Virgin Mary, who gave her a grapevine cross and instructed her to travel to Iberia to spread the Christian faith. Nino traveled to Iberia, preached Christianity, and converted the entire country.
According to tradition, she performed miraculous healings and converted the Georgian queen, Nana, and eventually the pagan king Mirian III of Iberia, who, lost in darkness and blinded on a hunting trip, found his way only after praying to "Nino's God". Mirian declared Christianity the official religion of his kingdom, and Nino continued her missionary activities among Georgians until her death.
Her tomb is still venerated at the Bodbe Monastery in Kakheti, eastern Georgia. She has become one of the most venerated saints of the Georgian Orthodox Church, and her attribute, the grapevine cross, is a symbol of Georgian Christianity.
She was named Christina by Rufinus and Theognosta by the Byzantines.

Early life

Many sources agree that Nino was born in the small town of Colastri in the Roman province of Cappadocia, although some sources disagree. Regarding her family and origin, the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church preserve different traditions.
According to the Eastern Orthodox tradition, she was the only child of a prominent family. Her father was the Roman general Zabulon, and her mother was Susanna. On her father’s side, Nino was related to St. George, and on her mother’s side, to the patriarch of Jerusalem, Houbnal I.
During her childhood, Nino was raised by the nun Niofora-Sarah of Bethlehem. Her uncle, the patriarch of Jerusalem, oversaw her upbringing. With his help, she later traveled to Rome.
While in Rome, Nino met and baptized Princess Hripsime and her nurse, Gayane. At that time, the Roman emperor was Diocletian, infamous for persecuting Christians. Diocletian fell in love with Hripsime and sought to marry her, but Nino, Hripsime, Gayane, and fifty other Christian virgins fled to Armenia.
In Armenia, Nino belonged to a community of 35 virgins, under the leadership of St. Gayane and including the martyr Hripsime. They preached Christianity in the Armenian Kingdom until King Tiridates III ordered their torture and beheading. Nino alone escaped and fled toward Iberia. The 35 virgins were later canonized by the Armenian Apostolic Church, including Nino.
Shortly afterward, Nino entered the Kingdom of Iberia in the Caucasus from the Kingdom of Armenia, escaping the persecution of Tiridates III.
According to legend, it was at this time that Nino received a vision in which the Virgin Mary gave her a grapevine cross and said:
She awoke with the cross in her hands and tied it together with her own hair.
In contrast, the Roman Catholic tradition, preserved in the writings of Rufinus of Aquileia, states that Nino did not arrive in Iberia by her own will but was brought there as a slave, and that her lineage was obscure.

St Nino in Iberia

Nino reached the borders of the ancient Georgian Kingdom of Iberia from the south about 320. There she placed a Christian cross in the small town of Akhalkalaki and started preaching the Christian faith in Urbnisi and finally reached Mtskheta, the capital of Iberia. The Iberian Kingdom had been influenced by the neighbouring Persian Empire, which played an important role as the regional power in the Caucasus. Iberian King Mirian III and his nation worshiped the syncretic gods Armazi and Zaden.
Upon her arrival in Iberia, Saint Nino began preaching and soon gained followers. She also healed the sick. Shortly after Nino arrived 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. 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 to Byzantium to ask Emperor Constantine 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 and sent a delegation of bishops to the court of the Georgian King. Roman historian Tyrannius Rufinus in Historia 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 the Svetitskhoveli 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 in Bodbe, where her tomb can still be seen in the churchyard.
The Georgian name is Nune in Armenian. Her history as the only one of the 35 nuns of the company of the saints Gayane and Hripsime to escape the slaughter at the hands of the pagan Armenian King Tiradates III in 301 is recounted in the history of Movses Khorenatsi.

Legacy

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 head Patriarch 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 of Georgian Apostolic Orthodox Christian nuns in the Patriarchate of Georgia's North American Diocese. It is located in Union Bridge, Maryland, USA, and was established in September 2012.
Nino and its variants remain the most popular name for women and girls in the Republic of Georgia. There are currently 88,442 women over the age of 16 with that name residing in the country, according to the Georgian Ministry of Justice. It also continues to be a popular name for baby girls.
Her parents Zabulon and Susanna were canonised in 1997.

Feast days

  • 14 January – main commemoration,
  • 19 May – Nina entrance into Georgia in 303,
  • 20 May – commemoration of saint Zabulon and Susanna, parents of saint Nina,
  • 23 May – commemoration in Georgia,
  • 29 October – commemoration in Armenia,
  • 15 December – older Catholic commemoration.