George the Iberian
Our Venerable Father George the Iberian, Abbot of the Monastery of the Iberians on Mount Athos
Venerable · d. 11th century, on Mount Athos
Commemorated 13 May — Commemoration with the Georgian fathers of Iviron
George the Iberian was the Georgian monk who was elected abbot of the Monastery of the Iberians (Iviron) on Mount Athos after Euthymius the Iberian resigned the governance in order to devote himself to translation, and who reposed in peace. That single sentence is the whole of the Greek synaxarion notice for him, and this entry is accordingly short. He is commemorated on May 13 with the other Georgian fathers of Iviron. English calendars frequently identify him with George the Hagiorite (†1065), the abbot and translator who wrote the Life of John and Euthymius and whose principal feast is June 27; the question is treated below and is not resolved here.
What is transmitted
The Great Synaxaristes prints, under May 13, the entry Ὁ Ὅσιος Γεώργιος ὁ Ἴβηρας, and gives of him only this: that he was chosen hegoumenos of the monastery of the Iberians on the Holy Mountain after the resignation of the venerable Euthymius, and that he fell asleep in peace. No birthplace, no parentage, no year, no miracle and no relic-tradition is recorded in the notice.
The little that is said, however, places him exactly. Euthymius laid down the abbacy of Iviron in order to give the rest of his life to translating the Scriptures and the Fathers into Georgian; the man chosen to take up the administration in his place therefore governed the greatest Georgian house in the Christian world in the first decades of the eleventh century, in the generation that consolidated what John, Tornike and Euthymius had built. He was a Georgian — that is what ὁ Ἴβηρας means — and he died a peaceful death, not a martyr's. That he is remembered by name at all, in a notice that says nothing else about him, is a measure of how the Mountain reckoned the office he held.
Consistently with the discipline of this reference, nothing further is supplied. A saint known from one clause of one synaxarion entry receives an honest short Life.
Feast and commemoration
May 13 (church date; New Calendar civil May 13, Old Calendar civil May 26), within the synaxis of the Georgian fathers of the Holy Mountain — John, Euthymius and Gabriel — kept together with the Iberite venerable-martyrs. He has no proper service; the common of a venerable father is sung with his name. Because the date of Pascha moves, May 13 falls in some years within the Paschal season and in others after Pentecost, and no fixed seasonal note belongs to the day.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 8 (common of a venerable father)
In thee, O Father, that which is according to the image was preserved exactly: for taking up the cross, thou didst follow Christ, and by thy deeds didst teach us to despise the flesh, for it passeth away, but to care for the soul, a thing immortal; wherefore thy spirit rejoiceth with the angels, O venerable George.
Original translation from the Greek
Iconography
George has no distinct portrait type of his own; he takes the ordinary type of an Athonite abbot — a monastic father in the mantle and analavos of the great schema, bearded, blessing or holding a scroll, and where a founder's or governor's attribute is wanted, the model of the monastery of Iviron. His usual place is in the group of the Georgian Athonite fathers, inscribed in Georgian asomtavruli in Georgian programmes; because that group is normally read as John, Euthymius and George the Hagiorite, any single figure inscribed simply "George the Iberian" is as likely to be the Hagiorite as the successor of Euthymius, and no image has been stored here for that reason. His feast being in May, the Menologion of Basil II (September–February) contains nothing for him.
Disputed questions
- Not to be confused with George the Hagiorite (Giorgi Mtatsmindeli, c. 1009–1065), whose feast is June 27. The identification of the two, made by English calendars following the OCA, is chronologically impossible: Euthymius resigned the abbacy in or about 1019, when the Hagiorite was a child of ten, and the Hagiorite did not reach Athos until 1040 or hold the abbacy until 1044. They are two Georgian abbots of the same house and name, a generation apart. The argument is set out in full in the June 27 entry; the paragraphs below record the question as it stood before that entry was written.
- Which George? Two Georgian abbots of Iviron named George stand in the eleventh century, and
the calendars do not clearly distinguish them.
- George I of Iviron, the immediate successor of Euthymius in the governance — the plain sense of the Greek notice for May 13, which defines him precisely as the man elected after Euthymius' resignation.
- George the Hagiorite (Giorgi Mtatsmindeli, c. 1009–1065), abbot of Iviron a generation later, the second of the great Georgian translators, and the author of the Life of John and Euthymius on which almost all knowledge of the founders depends. His principal feast is June 27, and the Orthodox Church in America's notice for May 13 refers to "Saint George of Mount Athos (May 13 and June 27), who authored Euthymius' biography" — that is, it identifies the May 13 George with the Hagiorite and gives him a second feast on this day. The two readings cannot both be right about the same commemoration, but they can both be right about the day: it is entirely possible that May 13, as the synaxis of the Georgian fathers of Iviron, carries both Georges — the successor named in the Greek notice, and the Hagiorite as one of the fathers of the house, whose own feast is in June. This entry stands for the George of the Greek May 13 notice, the successor of Euthymius. The June 27 entry for George the Hagiorite has now been written, and rejects the identification on the chronology; both entries stand.
- "Monastic martyr." The OCA's May 13 list styles him "Monastic Martyr George of the Iveron Monastery on Mount Athos." The Greek synaxaria call him Ὅσιος, venerable, and say expressly that he reposed in peace; the martyr-title appears to have been carried over from the later Iberite venerable-martyrs of the same monastery, and this entry follows the Greek classification.
- Not to be confused with George the Great-Martyr (April 23), nor with George of Amastris, George of Mytilene, George the Chozebite, George of Maleon, George of Vladimir or George the New of Sofia.