Nino

Rufinus speaks only of a captive woman among the Iberians, whose way of life and prayers were the cause of that people’s conversion (Rufinus, Church History 10.11 (book 1, chapter 10 in Migne), col. 480). The Georgian texts give her a name and a history. In The Conversion of Kartli Nino is a captive who escapes from Armenia when her companions are martyred there, crosses the mountains to Mtskheta, and lives for three years in a bramble thicket outside its walls, praying before a cross she has made of vine stems (Conversion of Kartli Wardrop, pp. 61–62) (Conversion of Kartli Wardrop, p. 62).

The longer Life makes her the only child of Zabulon, a Cappadocian, and of Sosana, whose brother Iobenal had become patriarch (Life of Nino p. 7) (Life of Nino p. 10). It calls her an apostle and the enlightener of Georgia and gives 14 January as her feast (Life of Nino p. 7). It tells of her burial at the village of Budi in Kakheti, which the translators’ heading calls Bodbe (Life of Nino p. 56). The whole story is told under the Conversion of Georgia.