Kostanti-Kakhay
Encyclopedia
Kostanti-Kakhay, Kostanti-Kaxay , or Kostanti Kakhi (კოსტანტი კახი) (768 – November 10, 853) was a Christian
Georgian
nobleman from Kartli
, who was seized captive by the Abbasid general Bugha al-Kabir
during his 853 expedition into the Caucasus
. He was subsequently put to death, at the age of 85, for refusing to convert to Islam
. This made Kostanti a subject of the contemporaneous hagiography
and a saint
of the Georgian Orthodox Church.
Kakhay's capture is also documented in a Georgian inscription from the Ateni Sioni church
and his death as a martyr
is mentioned by the 9th-10th century Armenia
n chronicler Tovma Artsruni
. The Georgian church commemorates
him on November 23
(O.S. November 10).
, reigned as a "servant of God". In the same passage, the author also mentions Theodora's son Michael III
(r. 842-67).
In general, the Life and Passion of Kostanti-Kakhay reflects the rise of Byzantine cultural and political influence and of Georgian nationalism. The text incorporates many other narratives and contains several biblical
allusions. Its opening phrases are a literal translation from George of Alexandria
's Life of Saint John Chrysostom
( 620), a text otherwise unknown in Georgian until 968. It also echoes several passages from the earlier pieces of Georgian hagiography – the anonymous Passion of Eustathius of Mtskheta
(570s) and Ioane Sabanisdze's the Passion of Abo of Tbilisi
( 790).
The earliest extant manuscript of the Life and Passion of Kostanti-Kakhay dates to the 18th century. First published by Mikhail Sabinin
in 1882, it has been translated into Latin (P. Peeters, 1925), Russian
(N. Vachnadze and K. Kutsia, 1978), and English
(M. Abashidze and S.H. Rapp, 2004).
in 768. "Kakhay" is the sobriquet, indicating his origin from Kakheti
. Kostanti amassed a considerable wealth and publicly professed Christianity at the time when the Abbasid political hegemony was strongly felt in the Georgian lands and an Arab emir sat at Tbilisi
, the erstwhile capital of Kartli. He was respected for his generosity and pilgrimage and donations to Jerusalem. He was 85, when he was seized by Bugha
, the Turkic commander of the Abbasid army in the Caucasus, as "a leader and the most noble man in all of Kartli", and sent to the court of the caliph
Al-Mutawakkil
in Samarra
. The seasoned captive rejected both offers of wealth in return of apostasy to Islam and threats of torture, remaining steadfast. Two noblemen (eristavi
) from Somkhiti
, who had agreed to convert to Islam
, visited Kostanti in prison, first to persuade him and a second time to behead him; in both cases they failed. Then the caliph sent his own servant who put the defiant prisoner to death.
The Life and Passion of Kostanti-Kakhay ends with moralizing:
in Kartli, near Gori
, which relates that "on August 5, a Saturday, in koronikon 73, the Islamic year
239, Bugha burnt the city of Tbilisi and captured the Emir Sahak and killed him. And also in August, on the 26th, on Saturday, Zirak took Kakha and his son Tarkhuji prisoner." The events described in this inscription were part of Bugha's Caucasian expedition, in the course of which he sacked Tbilisi and had its rebellious Muslim emir Ishaq ibn Isma'il ("Sahak" of the Georgians) executed. The Georgian nobles who sided with the emir were also punished in a series of reprisal raids commanded by Bugha and his lieutenant Zirak. Many captives were taken; some of them killed. The 9th-10th-century Armenian historian Tovma Artsruni, while recounting the same events in his History of the House of the Artsrunik, mentions the martyrdom of Kakhay and his companion Sevordi at the hands of the Muslims. Another Armenian historian of the early 10th century, Hovhannes Draskhanakertsi, refers to seven men martyred under Bugha in 302 of the Armenian era
, which corresponds to the year of Kostanti's death.
Old Georgian hagiographical and homiletic texts: Part No. 21. Accessed November 23, 2011. Tseradze, Tina (2010). კონსტანტი კახი/კონსტანტინე ქართველთა მთავარი (+ 853 წ.) (Konstanti Kakhi/Constantine, Prince of the Georgians [+ 853]). ქართველი ისტორიული მოღვაწენი (Georgian Historical Figures) by Georgian National Center of Manuscripts
. Accessed November 23, 2011.
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
Georgian
Georgia (country)
Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...
nobleman from Kartli
Kartli
Kartli is a historical region in central-to-eastern Georgia traversed by the river Mtkvari , on which Georgia's capital, Tbilisi, is situated. Known to the Classical authors as Iberia, Kartli played a crucial role in ethnic and political consolidation of the Georgians in the Middle Ages...
, who was seized captive by the Abbasid general Bugha al-Kabir
Bugha al-Kabir
Bugha al-Kabir al-Sharabi or Bugha the Elder, also known as Bugha al-Turki , was a 9th-century Turkic general who served the Abbasids....
during his 853 expedition into the Caucasus
Caucasus
The Caucasus, also Caucas or Caucasia , is a geopolitical region at the border of Europe and Asia, and situated between the Black and the Caspian sea...
. He was subsequently put to death, at the age of 85, for refusing to convert to Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
. This made Kostanti a subject of the contemporaneous hagiography
Hagiography
Hagiography is the study of saints.From the Greek and , it refers literally to writings on the subject of such holy people, and specifically to the biographies of saints and ecclesiastical leaders. The term hagiology, the study of hagiography, is also current in English, though less common...
and a saint
Saint
A saint is a holy person. In various religions, saints are people who are believed to have exceptional holiness.In Christian usage, "saint" refers to any believer who is "in Christ", and in whom Christ dwells, whether in heaven or in earth...
of the Georgian Orthodox Church.
Kakhay's capture is also documented in a Georgian inscription from the Ateni Sioni church
Ateni Sioni Church
The Ateni Sioni Church is an early 7th-century Georgian Orthodox church some south of the city of Gori, Georgia. It stands in a setting of the Tana River valley known not only for its historical monuments but also for its picturesque landscapes and wine...
and his death as a martyr
Martyr
A martyr is somebody who suffers persecution and death for refusing to renounce, or accept, a belief or cause, usually religious.-Meaning:...
is mentioned by the 9th-10th century Armenia
Armenia
Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...
n chronicler Tovma Artsruni
Tovma Artsruni
Tovma Artsruni was a ninth century to tenth century Armenian historian and author of the History of the House of Artsrunik...
. The Georgian church commemorates
Calendar of saints
The calendar of saints is a traditional Christian method of organizing a liturgical year by associating each day with one or more saints and referring to the feast day of said saint...
him on November 23
November 23 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Nov. 22 - Eastern Orthodox Church calendar - Nov. 24All fixed commemorations below celebrated on December 6 by Old Calendarists-Saints:*Hierarch Amphilochius, bishop of Iconium *Hierarch Gregory, bishop of Agrigentum...
(O.S. November 10).
The Life and Passion of Kostanti-Kakhay
Much of Kostanti-Kakhay's biography is known from the hagiorgaphic work The Life and Passion of Kostanti-Kakhay, the full title of which is "the Life and Passion of the Holy Martyr Kostanti the Georgian, who was Martyred by Jafar, King of Babylonians" (ცხორებაჲ და წამებაჲ წმიდისა მოწამისა კოსტანტი ქართველისაჲ, რომელი იწამა ბაბილონელთა მეფისა ჯაფარის მიერ, cxorebaj da c'amebaj c'midisa moc'amisa k'ost'ant'isi kartvelisaj, romeli ic'ama babiloelta mepisa dzaparis mier). Its anonymous author, apparently a monk, identifies himself as a contemporary of Kostanti, saying that the martyr "lived during our time", when Theodora, the Byzantine empress who opposed iconoclasmIconoclasm
Iconoclasm is the deliberate destruction of religious icons and other symbols or monuments, usually with religious or political motives. It is a frequent component of major political or religious changes...
, reigned as a "servant of God". In the same passage, the author also mentions Theodora's son Michael III
Michael III
Michael III , , Byzantine Emperor from 842 to 867. Michael III was the third and traditionally last member of the Amorian-Phrygian Dynasty...
(r. 842-67).
In general, the Life and Passion of Kostanti-Kakhay reflects the rise of Byzantine cultural and political influence and of Georgian nationalism. The text incorporates many other narratives and contains several biblical
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
allusions. Its opening phrases are a literal translation from George of Alexandria
Patriarch George I of Alexandria
-References:...
's Life of Saint John Chrysostom
John Chrysostom
John Chrysostom , Archbishop of Constantinople, was an important Early Church Father. He is known for his eloquence in preaching and public speaking, his denunciation of abuse of authority by both ecclesiastical and political leaders, the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, and his ascetic...
( 620), a text otherwise unknown in Georgian until 968. It also echoes several passages from the earlier pieces of Georgian hagiography – the anonymous Passion of Eustathius of Mtskheta
Eustathius of Mtskheta
Eustathius or Eustace of Mtskheta is an Orthodox Christian saint, executed for his apostasy from Zoroastrianism by the Persian military authorities in Georgia...
(570s) and Ioane Sabanisdze's the Passion of Abo of Tbilisi
Abo of Tiflis
Saint Abo of Tiflis or Abo Tbileli is a Christian martyr and the Patron Saint of the city of Tbilisi, Georgia....
( 790).
The earliest extant manuscript of the Life and Passion of Kostanti-Kakhay dates to the 18th century. First published by Mikhail Sabinin
Mikhail Sabinin
Mikhail Sabinin was a Russo-Georgian monk, historian of the Georgian Orthodox Church and iconographer.He was born to the Russian priest from Tver, Pavel Sabinin, and a Georgian woman. Educated at the Tiflis gymnasium in the 1860s, he then attended St...
in 1882, it has been translated into Latin (P. Peeters, 1925), Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
(N. Vachnadze and K. Kutsia, 1978), and English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
(M. Abashidze and S.H. Rapp, 2004).
Biography
According to the Life and Passion of Kostanti-Kakhay, Kostanti-Kakhay was born of a noble family of KartliKartli
Kartli is a historical region in central-to-eastern Georgia traversed by the river Mtkvari , on which Georgia's capital, Tbilisi, is situated. Known to the Classical authors as Iberia, Kartli played a crucial role in ethnic and political consolidation of the Georgians in the Middle Ages...
in 768. "Kakhay" is the sobriquet, indicating his origin from Kakheti
Kakheti
Kakheti is a historical province in Eastern Georgia inhabited by Kakhetians who speak a local dialect of Georgian. It is bordered by the small mountainous province of Tusheti and the Greater Caucasus mountain range to the north, Russian Federation to the Northeast, Azerbaijan to the Southeast, and...
. Kostanti amassed a considerable wealth and publicly professed Christianity at the time when the Abbasid political hegemony was strongly felt in the Georgian lands and an Arab emir sat at Tbilisi
Tbilisi
Tbilisi is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Mt'k'vari River. The name is derived from an early Georgian form T'pilisi and it was officially known as Tiflis until 1936...
, the erstwhile capital of Kartli. He was respected for his generosity and pilgrimage and donations to Jerusalem. He was 85, when he was seized by Bugha
Bugha al-Kabir
Bugha al-Kabir al-Sharabi or Bugha the Elder, also known as Bugha al-Turki , was a 9th-century Turkic general who served the Abbasids....
, the Turkic commander of the Abbasid army in the Caucasus, as "a leader and the most noble man in all of Kartli", and sent to the court of the caliph
Caliph
The Caliph is the head of state in a Caliphate, and the title for the ruler of the Islamic Ummah, an Islamic community ruled by the Shari'ah. It is a transcribed version of the Arabic word which means "successor" or "representative"...
Al-Mutawakkil
Al-Mutawakkil
Al-Mutawakkil ʻAlā Allāh Jaʻfar ibn al-Muʻtasim was an Abbasid caliph who reigned in Samarra from 847 until 861...
in Samarra
Samarra
Sāmarrā is a city in Iraq. It stands on the east bank of the Tigris in the Salah ad-Din Governorate, north of Baghdad and, in 2003, had an estimated population of 348,700....
. The seasoned captive rejected both offers of wealth in return of apostasy to Islam and threats of torture, remaining steadfast. Two noblemen (eristavi
Eristavi
Eristavi was a Georgian feudal office, roughly equivalent to the Byzantine strategos and normally translated into English as "duke". In the Georgian aristocratic hierarchy, it was the title of the third rank of prince and governor of a large province...
) from Somkhiti
Somkhiti
Somkhiti was an ambiguous geographic term used in medieval and early modern Georgian historical sources to refer to Armenia on one hand and to the Armeno-Georgian marchlands along the river valleys of Debed and Khrami on the other hand...
, who had agreed to convert to Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
, visited Kostanti in prison, first to persuade him and a second time to behead him; in both cases they failed. Then the caliph sent his own servant who put the defiant prisoner to death.
The Life and Passion of Kostanti-Kakhay ends with moralizing:
Further historical evidence
Kostanti's patristic biography is corroborated by a stone inscription in the Ateni Sioni churchAteni Sioni Church
The Ateni Sioni Church is an early 7th-century Georgian Orthodox church some south of the city of Gori, Georgia. It stands in a setting of the Tana River valley known not only for its historical monuments but also for its picturesque landscapes and wine...
in Kartli, near Gori
Gori, Georgia
Gori is a city in eastern Georgia, which serves as the regional capital of Shida Kartli and the centre of the homonymous administrative district. The name is from Georgian gora , that is, "heap", or "hill"...
, which relates that "on August 5, a Saturday, in koronikon 73, the Islamic year
Islamic calendar
The Hijri calendar , also known as the Muslim calendar or Islamic calendar , is a lunar calendar consisting of 12 lunar months in a year of 354 or 355 days. It is used to date events in many Muslim countries , and used by Muslims everywhere to determine the proper day on which to celebrate Islamic...
239, Bugha burnt the city of Tbilisi and captured the Emir Sahak and killed him. And also in August, on the 26th, on Saturday, Zirak took Kakha and his son Tarkhuji prisoner." The events described in this inscription were part of Bugha's Caucasian expedition, in the course of which he sacked Tbilisi and had its rebellious Muslim emir Ishaq ibn Isma'il ("Sahak" of the Georgians) executed. The Georgian nobles who sided with the emir were also punished in a series of reprisal raids commanded by Bugha and his lieutenant Zirak. Many captives were taken; some of them killed. The 9th-10th-century Armenian historian Tovma Artsruni, while recounting the same events in his History of the House of the Artsrunik, mentions the martyrdom of Kakhay and his companion Sevordi at the hands of the Muslims. Another Armenian historian of the early 10th century, Hovhannes Draskhanakertsi, refers to seven men martyred under Bugha in 302 of the Armenian era
Armenian calendar
The Armenian calendar is the traditional calendar of Armenia. It is a solar calendar based on the same system as the ancient Egyptian model, having an invariant 365-day year with no leap year rule...
, which corresponds to the year of Kostanti's death.
External links
Martyrium Constantii Cachae TITUSTITUS (project)
TITUS is a project of Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main, maintained by Professor Dr...
Old Georgian hagiographical and homiletic texts: Part No. 21. Accessed November 23, 2011. Tseradze, Tina (2010). კონსტანტი კახი/კონსტანტინე ქართველთა მთავარი (+ 853 წ.) (Konstanti Kakhi/Constantine, Prince of the Georgians [+ 853]). ქართველი ისტორიული მოღვაწენი (Georgian Historical Figures) by Georgian National Center of Manuscripts
Georgian National Center of Manuscripts
The Georgian National Center of Manuscripts is a research and educational institution dedicated to studying old manuscripts and historical documents. The Center is based in Tbilisi . Was founded as Institute of Manuscripts on June 30, 1958...
. Accessed November 23, 2011.