Venerable Joseph the Presbyter of Khevi, Wonderworker (†1763) — October 7 / October 20 (Julian Calendar)

On this day, October 7 according to the Julian Calendar (October 20 civil calendar), the Georgian Orthodox Church commemorates Venerable Joseph the Presbyter of Khevi, Wonderworker.

Very little information about Saint Joseph the Presbyter has come down to us. We know that he was a native of Khevi and served there as a priest.

The people of Khevi — “men of battle, mighty, valiant and noble” — have always been distinguished by their zeal for the faith, and the churches and monasteries of that land astonish us with their beauty and inaccessibility. It is as though the churches there were deliberately built in places where merely reaching them was already akin to an act of confession.

The glory and symbol of Khevi is Mkinvari (Mount Kazbek), “ever silvered with ice,” on whose slopes stands the Holy Trinity Monastery, “a beautiful building in a beautiful place,” where the Cross of Saint Nino was once kept.

High on Mkinvari, among the ice, in a place inaccessible to men, there was said to be a cave hewn into the rock, which was called Bethlehem. One could enter it only by means of a chain let down from above. According to The Life of Kartli (Kartlis Tskhovreba), many wonders were kept there: “They say that the cradle of the Lord is there, and the tent of Abraham standing without pillars or ropes, and other marvels.”

According to Prince David (1776–1819), eldest son of King George XII, Joseph of Khevi “was a great lover of holiness and a faster, so that his virtue became renowned everywhere. By the will of God he ascended Mount Mkinvari, inaccessible to men, and there beheld the tent and the cradle of the Patriarch Abraham, where no one before him had ever ascended, and he brought to King Erekle a piece of that tent. He also attained the measure of a wonderworker, and thus he fell asleep in the Lord.”

He reposed in 1763.