Venerable Arsenius of Ninotsminda — July 31 / August 13 (Julian Calendar)

On this day, July 31 according to the Julian Calendar (August 13 civil calendar), the Georgian Orthodox Church commemorates Venerable Arsenius of Ninotsminda (+1082).

Saint Arsenius of Ninotsminda was an ecclesiastical figure of the eleventh century — a translator, a man of letters, and one of the finest calligraphers of his age. He was tonsured a monk in Jerusalem, and later this “man of lofty virtue and laborer of the commandments of Christ” was invited to Georgia, where he was consecrated Bishop of Ninotsminda.

In time Saint Arsenius “for the sake of God laid aside his bishopric and came before David Kuropalates.” David, ruler of Tao, received Arsenius with the honor worthy of his sanctity and sent him to the monastery of Otkhta Eklesia. In those days the monk John Grdzelisdze lived at Otkhta Eklesia, and the two became devoted friends: “these blessed fathers of ours, John and Arsenius, had great love for one another, and for many years they labored there in the good struggle of monasticism.” Yet at Otkhta Eklesia they could not feel sufficiently withdrawn from the life of this world — “they could not abide in stillness” — and so they resolved to depart for a foreign land. They journeyed to the regions of Pontus and settled in one of the monasteries there. When John and Euthymius of Mount Athos, who were then laboring at the newly founded Georgian monastery on the Holy Mountain, learned where the fathers were dwelling, they invited them to join them. The following year Arsenius and John arrived on Athos and stood shoulder to shoulder with Euthymius, upon whom the full weight of the abbacy had fallen after his father’s death. They “became great helpers to the holy father Euthymius in the translation of the Holy Scriptures, became zealous imitators of his holy virtues, and even in their old age copied many books of the Church with their own hands,” relates the biographer of Saint George of Mount Athos.

Saint Arsenius reposed on Mount Athos and was buried outside the monastery, in a church of Saint Simeon the Stylite. When Saint George of Mount Athos was chosen abbot of the Iveron Monastery, he translated the relics of Saint Arsenius to a place of special honor in the great church, beside Saint Euthymius of Mount Athos.