Ambrosi
Encyclopedia
Ambrosius (September 7, 1861 – March 29, 1927) was a Georgian
religious figure and scholar who served as the Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia
from 1921 to 1927. Best known for his opposition to the Soviet regime
, he was canonized, in 1995, by the Georgian Orthodox Church as Saint Ambrosius the Confessor (ამბროსი აღმსარებელი, Ambrosi Aghmsarebeli).
, Georgia, then part of Imperial Russia. He graduated from the Tiflis Theological Seminary in 1885 and was ordained to the priesthood in Abkhazia
where he served as a priest in Sukhumi
, New Athos
, and Lykhny
, and also delivered courses in the Georgian language. Under the pseudonym of Amber, he published a series of articles denouncing the policy of Russification
in Abkhazia and accusing local Russian officials of fomenting anti-Georgian sentiments among the Abkhaz people
. In 1896, he enrolled into the Kazan Theological Academy, from which he graduated in 1900, having authored a thesis, “the Struggle of Christianity against Islam in Georgia.” Tonsured a Hieromonk
in 1901, he returned in Georgia where he was made an archimandrite
at the Chelishi Monastery in the province of Racha
. In 1904, he was transferred to the Synodal Office
in Tbilisi
, and became an archimandrite
of the Monastery of the Transfiguration
.
movement, calling for the restoration of the autocephalous (independent) Orthodox Church of Georgia abolished by Imperial Russia in 1811. Waged for the most part in the press and church committees, the struggle peaked during the Russian Revolution of 1905
and occasionally evolved into violent clashes. The Georgian bishops pointed out that under the Russian exarch
es sent down from St. Petersburg to run Georgia’s ecclesiastic affairs, the Georgian church lost some 140 million rubles’ worth of property and estates; Church schools had been closed down, and the use of Georgian in the liturgy discouraged; twenty episcopal sees lay vacant and seven hundred and forty parishes were without pastors. The Georgians sent an appeal to the tsar
, but nothing came of this. Autocephaly was denied. The conference of Georgian clergy which met at Tbilisi in 1905 was dispersed by police and several "autocephalists" were arrested. Ambrosius was banned from celebrating the liturgy
and confined in the Troitsky Monastery at Ryazan
.
The struggle culminated in 1908, when the Russian Exarch of Georgia, Archbishop Nikon, was murdered on 28 May at his residence in Tbilisi by unidentified assassins, allegedly by a Georgian nationalist. No one was ever tried or convicted for the murder, and although the links of the Georgian autocephalists to the crime remained unclear, the initial police investigation concluded they had been behind the murder of Nikon, and the Russian authorities used the situation as a pretext for removing Georgian bishops from their posts. Ambrosius was also suspended from serving and deported to Russia. He was acquitted in 1910, but it was not until the 1917 events when he was allowed to return to Georgia. Although the Georgian autocephalist movement earned worldwide sympathies, the dispute dragged on indecisively for years, until the outbreak of World War I
relegated it temporarily to the background.
The 1917 February Revolution
in the Russian Empire and the ensuing turmoil in both church and state gave an opportunity to the Georgian Church to reassert its autocephalous status. On March 12, 1917, a group of Georgian clergymen proclaimed the autocephaly of their Church and elected Bishop Kyrion
as Catholicos Patriarch. The Most Holy Synod
of the Russian Orthodox Church
refused to recognize the move, and the result was a break in communion between the two Churches. Ambrosius was soon consecrated Metropolitan of Chkondidi, western Georgia, and then transferred to Abkhazia.
to an end. Soon the Catholicos Patriarch Leonid
died of cholera
, and, on October 14, 1921, Ambrosius was elected as his successor.
Under the newly established Bolshevik
regime, the Church was deprived of juridical status, and churches and monasteries began to be closed. The clergy was persecuted and the property of the churches and monasteries confiscated.
On February 7, 1922, Ambrosius addressed a memorandum to the Genoa Conference
, in which he described the conditions under which Georgia was living since the Red Army invasion, protested in the name of the people of Georgia, deprived of their rights, against the Soviet occupation and demanded the intervention of civilized humanity to oppose the atrocities of the Bolshevik regime. In February 1923, Ambrosius and all members of the Patriarchal Council were arrested and put into prison by the Bolsheviks. In March 1924, the Soviet authorities staged a humiliating public trial
. Besides sending an appeal to the Genoa Conference, Ambrosi was also accused of concealing of the historic treasures of the Church in order to preserve them from passing into the hands of the Soviet state. All the clerics arrested along with the Patriarch, showed their solidarity with Ambrosius, who assumed the entire responsibility for his acts, which he declared to have been in conformity with his obligations and with the tradition of the Church of Georgia. His concluding words were: "My soul belongs to God, my heart to my country; you, my executioners, do what you will with my body." Ambrosi was expected to be sentenced to death, but the Communists did not dare to execute him and condemned him to eight years imprisonment while his property was confiscated.
Shortly afterwards, the 1924 August Uprising
broke out in several regions of Georgia against the Soviet Union
and lasted for three weeks. Approximately 3,000 died in fighting, more than 12,000 were executed and 20,000 deported to Siberia
. A number of clerics were also purged, Archbishop Nazari of Kutatisi
and Gaenati
being among those who were shot without a trial.
The extent of the Red Terror
in Georgia and a public outcry caused by it forced the Soviets to relatively moderate their pressure on Georgia’s society in the following years. In early March 1925 the Chairman of the All-Union Executive Committee
, Mikhail Kalinin
, visited Georgia and called for the amnesty of the participants of the August 1924 insurrection, and for the suspension of religious persecutions. In 1926, Ambrosi and several other clerics were released from prisons. He did not live much longer, however, and died on March 29, 1927, in Tbilisi.
Ambrosius is also a known as a prolific historian of church and researcher of primary Georgian sources. He authored a number of articles published in Russian and Georgian press, and discovered a hitherto unknown version of the medieval Georgian chronicle, Moktsevay Kartlisay (“The Conversion of Georgia
”) (the so-called Chelishi codex).
In 1995, the Holy Synod
of the Georgian Orthodox Church canonized Ambrosius as the Holy Archpriest Ambrosius the Confessor and set March 16 (29, N.S.) as the day of his commemoration.
Georgians
The Georgians are an ethnic group that have originated in Georgia, where they constitute a majority of the population. Large Georgian communities are also present throughout Russia, European Union, United States, and South America....
religious figure and scholar who served as the Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia
Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia
Catholicos–Patriarch has been the title of the heads of the Georgian Orthodox Church since 1010. The first Catholicos–Patriarch of All Georgia was Melkisedek I...
from 1921 to 1927. Best known for his opposition to the Soviet regime
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, he was canonized, in 1995, by the Georgian Orthodox Church as Saint Ambrosius the Confessor (ამბროსი აღმსარებელი, Ambrosi Aghmsarebeli).
Early life and career
Ambrosius was born as Besarion Khelaia (ბესარიონ ხელაია) in MartviliMartvili
Martvili is a small town in Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti province of Western Georgia. Its monastery was Samegrelo's clerical centre in the Middle Ages...
, Georgia, then part of Imperial Russia. He graduated from the Tiflis Theological Seminary in 1885 and was ordained to the priesthood in Abkhazia
Abkhazia
Abkhazia is a disputed political entity on the eastern coast of the Black Sea and the south-western flank of the Caucasus.Abkhazia considers itself an independent state, called the Republic of Abkhazia or Apsny...
where he served as a priest in Sukhumi
Sukhumi
Sukhumi is the capital of Abkhazia, a disputed region on the Black Sea coast. The city suffered heavily during the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict in the early 1990s.-Naming:...
, New Athos
New Athos
New Athos is a town in the Gudauta raion of Abkhazia, situated some 22 km from Sukhumi by the shores of the Black Sea. The town was previously known under the names Nikopol, Acheisos, Anakopia, Nikopia, Nikofia, Nikopsis, Absara, Psyrtskha...
, and Lykhny
Lykhny
Lykhny is a village in the Gudauta District of Abkhazia, a disputed region on the Black Sea coast. The village lies along the narrow Black Sea plain of Abkhazia at an elevation of 50 meters above sea level. Lykhny is located five kilometers from the administrative center of Gudauta. There are...
, and also delivered courses in the Georgian language. Under the pseudonym of Amber, he published a series of articles denouncing the policy of Russification
Russification
Russification is an adoption of the Russian language or some other Russian attributes by non-Russian communities...
in Abkhazia and accusing local Russian officials of fomenting anti-Georgian sentiments among the Abkhaz people
Abkhaz people
The Abkhaz or Abkhazians are a Caucasian ethnic group, mainly living in Abkhazia, a disputed region on the Black Sea coast. A large Abkhazian diaspora population resides in Turkey, the origins of which lie in the emigration from the Caucasus in the late 19th century known as Muhajirism...
. In 1896, he enrolled into the Kazan Theological Academy, from which he graduated in 1900, having authored a thesis, “the Struggle of Christianity against Islam in Georgia.” Tonsured a Hieromonk
Hieromonk
Hieromonk , also called a Priestmonk, is a monk who is also a priest in the Orthodox Church and Eastern Catholicism....
in 1901, he returned in Georgia where he was made an archimandrite
Archimandrite
The title Archimandrite , primarily used in the Eastern Orthodox and the Eastern Catholic churches, originally referred to a superior abbot whom a bishop appointed to supervise...
at the Chelishi Monastery in the province of Racha
Racha
Racha is a highland area in western Georgia, located in the upper Rioni river valley and hemmed in by the Greater Caucasus mountains...
. In 1904, he was transferred to the Synodal Office
Most Holy Synod
The Most Holy Governing Synod was the highest governing body of the Russian Orthodox Church between 1721 and 1918, when the Patriarchate was restored. The jurisdiction of the Most Holy Synod extended over every kind of ecclesiastical question and over some that are partly secular.The Synod was...
in 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...
, and became an archimandrite
Archimandrite
The title Archimandrite , primarily used in the Eastern Orthodox and the Eastern Catholic churches, originally referred to a superior abbot whom a bishop appointed to supervise...
of the Monastery of the Transfiguration
Transfiguration of Jesus
The Transfiguration of Jesus is an event reported in the New Testament in which Jesus is transfigured and becomes radiant upon a mountain. The Synoptic Gospels describe it, and 2 Peter 1:16-18 refers to it....
.
Autocephalist movement
In the 1900s, during the heated debates concerning the status of the Georgian church, he emerged as one of the leaders of the Georgian autocephalistAutocephaly
Autocephaly , in hierarchical Christian churches and especially Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches, is the status of a hierarchical church whose head bishop does not report to any higher-ranking bishop...
movement, calling for the restoration of the autocephalous (independent) Orthodox Church of Georgia abolished by Imperial Russia in 1811. Waged for the most part in the press and church committees, the struggle peaked during the Russian Revolution of 1905
Russian Revolution of 1905
The 1905 Russian Revolution was a wave of mass political and social unrest that spread through vast areas of the Russian Empire. Some of it was directed against the government, while some was undirected. It included worker strikes, peasant unrest, and military mutinies...
and occasionally evolved into violent clashes. The Georgian bishops pointed out that under the Russian exarch
Exarch
In the Byzantine Empire, an exarch was governor with extended authority of a province at some remove from the capital Constantinople. The prevailing situation frequently involved him in military operations....
es sent down from St. Petersburg to run Georgia’s ecclesiastic affairs, the Georgian church lost some 140 million rubles’ worth of property and estates; Church schools had been closed down, and the use of Georgian in the liturgy discouraged; twenty episcopal sees lay vacant and seven hundred and forty parishes were without pastors. The Georgians sent an appeal to the tsar
Tsar
Tsar is a title used to designate certain European Slavic monarchs or supreme rulers. As a system of government in the Tsardom of Russia and Russian Empire, it is known as Tsarist autocracy, or Tsarism...
, but nothing came of this. Autocephaly was denied. The conference of Georgian clergy which met at Tbilisi in 1905 was dispersed by police and several "autocephalists" were arrested. Ambrosius was banned from celebrating the liturgy
Liturgy
Liturgy is either the customary public worship done by a specific religious group, according to its particular traditions or a more precise term that distinguishes between those religious groups who believe their ritual requires the "people" to do the "work" of responding to the priest, and those...
and confined in the Troitsky Monastery at Ryazan
Ryazan
Ryazan is a city and the administrative center of Ryazan Oblast, Russia. It is located on the Oka River southeast of Moscow. Population: The strategic bomber base Dyagilevo is just west of the city, and the air base of Alexandrovo is to the southeast as is the Ryazan Turlatovo Airport...
.
The struggle culminated in 1908, when the Russian Exarch of Georgia, Archbishop Nikon, was murdered on 28 May at his residence in Tbilisi by unidentified assassins, allegedly by a Georgian nationalist. No one was ever tried or convicted for the murder, and although the links of the Georgian autocephalists to the crime remained unclear, the initial police investigation concluded they had been behind the murder of Nikon, and the Russian authorities used the situation as a pretext for removing Georgian bishops from their posts. Ambrosius was also suspended from serving and deported to Russia. He was acquitted in 1910, but it was not until the 1917 events when he was allowed to return to Georgia. Although the Georgian autocephalist movement earned worldwide sympathies, the dispute dragged on indecisively for years, until the outbreak of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
relegated it temporarily to the background.
The 1917 February Revolution
February Revolution
The February Revolution of 1917 was the first of two revolutions in Russia in 1917. Centered around the then capital Petrograd in March . Its immediate result was the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, the end of the Romanov dynasty, and the end of the Russian Empire...
in the Russian Empire and the ensuing turmoil in both church and state gave an opportunity to the Georgian Church to reassert its autocephalous status. On March 12, 1917, a group of Georgian clergymen proclaimed the autocephaly of their Church and elected Bishop Kyrion
Patriarch Kyrion II of Georgia
Kyrion II was a Georgian religious figure and historian who served as the first Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia after the restoration of independence of the Georgian Orthodox Church from the Russian Orthodox Church in 1917 until his assassination in 1918...
as Catholicos Patriarch. The Most Holy Synod
Most Holy Synod
The Most Holy Governing Synod was the highest governing body of the Russian Orthodox Church between 1721 and 1918, when the Patriarchate was restored. The jurisdiction of the Most Holy Synod extended over every kind of ecclesiastical question and over some that are partly secular.The Synod was...
of the Russian Orthodox Church
Russian Orthodox Church
The Russian Orthodox Church or, alternatively, the Moscow Patriarchate The ROC is often said to be the largest of the Eastern Orthodox churches in the world; including all the autocephalous churches under its umbrella, its adherents number over 150 million worldwide—about half of the 300 million...
refused to recognize the move, and the result was a break in communion between the two Churches. Ambrosius was soon consecrated Metropolitan of Chkondidi, western Georgia, and then transferred to Abkhazia.
Catholicos Patriarch of All Georgia
The Soviet invasion of Georgia from February to March 1921 brought a short-lived independent Democratic Republic of GeorgiaDemocratic Republic of Georgia
The Democratic Republic of Georgia , 1918–1921, was the first modern establishment of a Republic of Georgia.The DRG was created after the collapse of the Russian Empire that began with the Russian Revolution of 1917...
to an end. Soon the Catholicos Patriarch Leonid
Patriarch Leonid of Georgia
Leonid was a Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia from 1918 to 1921.Born Longinoz Okropiridze in Georgia, then part of Imperial Russia, he graduated from the Theological Academy of Kiev, Ukraine in 1888...
died of cholera
Cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
, and, on October 14, 1921, Ambrosius was elected as his successor.
Under the newly established Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
regime, the Church was deprived of juridical status, and churches and monasteries began to be closed. The clergy was persecuted and the property of the churches and monasteries confiscated.
On February 7, 1922, Ambrosius addressed a memorandum to the Genoa Conference
Genoa Conference
The Genoa Conference was held in Genoa, Italy in 1922 from 10 April to 19 May. At this conference, the representatives of 34 countries convened to speak about monetary economics in the wake of World War I...
, in which he described the conditions under which Georgia was living since the Red Army invasion, protested in the name of the people of Georgia, deprived of their rights, against the Soviet occupation and demanded the intervention of civilized humanity to oppose the atrocities of the Bolshevik regime. In February 1923, Ambrosius and all members of the Patriarchal Council were arrested and put into prison by the Bolsheviks. In March 1924, the Soviet authorities staged a humiliating public trial
Public trial
Public trial or open trial is a trial open to public, as opposed to the secret trial. The term should not be confused with show trial.-United States:...
. Besides sending an appeal to the Genoa Conference, Ambrosi was also accused of concealing of the historic treasures of the Church in order to preserve them from passing into the hands of the Soviet state. All the clerics arrested along with the Patriarch, showed their solidarity with Ambrosius, who assumed the entire responsibility for his acts, which he declared to have been in conformity with his obligations and with the tradition of the Church of Georgia. His concluding words were: "My soul belongs to God, my heart to my country; you, my executioners, do what you will with my body." Ambrosi was expected to be sentenced to death, but the Communists did not dare to execute him and condemned him to eight years imprisonment while his property was confiscated.
Shortly afterwards, the 1924 August Uprising
August Uprising in Georgia
The August Uprising was an unsuccessful insurrection against Soviet rule in the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic from late August to early September 1924....
broke out in several regions of Georgia against the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and lasted for three weeks. Approximately 3,000 died in fighting, more than 12,000 were executed and 20,000 deported to Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
. A number of clerics were also purged, Archbishop Nazari of Kutatisi
Kutaisi
Kutaisi is Georgia's second largest city and the capital of the western region of Imereti. It is 221 km to the west of Tbilisi.-Geography:...
and Gaenati
Gelati Monastery
The Monastery of Gelati is a monastic complex near Kutaisi, Imereti, western Georgia. It contains the Church of the Virgin founded by the King of Georgia David the Builder in 1106, and the 13th-century churches of St George and St Nicholas....
being among those who were shot without a trial.
The extent of the Red Terror
Red Terror
The Red Terror in Soviet Russia was the campaign of mass arrests and executions conducted by the Bolshevik government. In Soviet historiography, the Red Terror is described as having been officially announced on September 2, 1918 by Yakov Sverdlov and ended about October 1918...
in Georgia and a public outcry caused by it forced the Soviets to relatively moderate their pressure on Georgia’s society in the following years. In early March 1925 the Chairman of the All-Union Executive Committee
President of the Soviet Union
The President of the Soviet Union , officially called President of the USSR was the Head of State of the USSR from 15 March 1990 to 25 December 1991. Mikhail Gorbachev was the only person to occupy the office. Gorbachev was also General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union between...
, Mikhail Kalinin
Mikhail Kalinin
Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin , known familiarly by Soviet citizens as "Kalinych," was a Bolshevik revolutionary and the nominal head of state of Russia and later of the Soviet Union, from 1919 to 1946...
, visited Georgia and called for the amnesty of the participants of the August 1924 insurrection, and for the suspension of religious persecutions. In 1926, Ambrosi and several other clerics were released from prisons. He did not live much longer, however, and died on March 29, 1927, in Tbilisi.
Ambrosius is also a known as a prolific historian of church and researcher of primary Georgian sources. He authored a number of articles published in Russian and Georgian press, and discovered a hitherto unknown version of the medieval Georgian chronicle, Moktsevay Kartlisay (“The Conversion of Georgia
Conversion of Kartli
The Conversion of Kartli is the earliest surviving medieval Georgian historical compendium, independent from The Georgian Chronicles, the major corpus historicum of medieval Georgia...
”) (the so-called Chelishi codex).
In 1995, the Holy Synod
Holy Synod
In several of the autocephalous Eastern Orthodox churches and Eastern Catholic Churches, the patriarch or head bishop is elected by a group of bishops called the Holy Synod...
of the Georgian Orthodox Church canonized Ambrosius as the Holy Archpriest Ambrosius the Confessor and set March 16 (29, N.S.) as the day of his commemoration.