HOLY FATHER GREGORY OF KHANTSTA IN GEORGIAN MANUSCRIPTS

The name of Gregory (Grigol) of Khantsta, Holy Father and great figure of the eighth-ninth centuries, initiator of the monastic life in Tao-Klarjeti, despite his immense service before the Georgian church and the country, occurs in a small number of manuscripts. The oldest of these is the Synaxarion of the 11th c., A 97. The liturgical collections mainly include only the commemoration (in some manuscripts small hymns are also offered). The text of the Life of Father Gregory has come down to us in a single manuscript. In the 18th c., when the national-patriotic topics became one of the leading directions in Georgian ecclesiastical literature, in the redactions of Feast Hymn Books by Catholicos Anton I, there already appeared a whole Rite (9-Ode Canon with small hymns). In addition, Anton’s Tsqobilsitqvaoba also includes an Iambic, dedicated to Gregory of Khantsta, whereas two liturgical collections of the same century contain two miniatures of the Holy Father. The number of the manuscripts in which the name of Gregory of Khantsta is mentioned is so insignificant, that it may be noted, that due to the separation of Tao-Klarjeti from the motherland, Holy Father Gregory of Khantsta was not duly valued in Georgia, at least until the publication of the Life at the beginning of the 20th c.