Martyrs of Lazeti

Historical Context

Lazeti was long a center of Georgian Christian culture; the Orthodox account associates the early evangelization of the region with the preaching of the Apostle Andrew. The Laz had been a predominantly Orthodox Christian people from the Christianization of the kingdom of Lazica, traditionally placed in the fifth century under King Gubazes I, and remained so for over a millennium.

Following the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453 and of Lazistan itself in 1547, Ottoman authority worked over the following centuries to suppress the Christian and Georgian identity of the Laz, and an Islamization policy led much of the population gradually to convert to Islam during the seventeenth century. The OCA account adds that Catholic missionary activity in the region grew during the same period. According to this tradition, the Laz, caught between these pressures, defended their Orthodox faith, while some who were forcibly converted still sought to preserve their cultural identity and ancestral memory.

The Martyrdoms

The Georgian Church's account records martyrdoms in the region between 1600 and 1620. Among these, tradition relates the beheading of some three hundred Laz warriors on a single mountain, and the killing of clergy at a local monastery. The two sites entered local memory under the names Mt. Dudikvati, understood as the 'place of beheading,' and Mt. Papati, the 'place of the clergy.'

Veneration

On the basis of testimony handed down by descendants, the Holy Synod of the Georgian Orthodox Church declared the clergy and laymen martyred at Dudikvati and Papati worthy to be numbered among the saints. They were canonized on September 18, 2003, and are commemorated together on April 29.