Martyr John Abbot of Zedazeni Monastery

John, abbot of the Zedazeni Monastery in Georgia, is a martyr of the 9th century whose full life has not been preserved. He is commemorated on December 12 and is distinct from the earlier Saint John of Zedazeni, the 6th-century leader of the Thirteen Syrian Fathers under whom the monastery was founded.

Almost nothing of John's personal history survives. What is known of him comes not from a developed life but from a single administrative record: a list of the names of the holy fathers who reposed at Zedazeni Monastery after John of Zedazeni, compiled by Catholicos Arsenius II. According to that list, Abbot John was murdered at Zedazeni by Muslims, and he is venerated by the Church as a martyr.

His commemoration preserves the memory of monastic suffering at Zedazeni during a period when Georgia's monasteries were exposed to incursion. Because no narrative of his deeds was handed down, the Church remembers him chiefly through his death rather than through recorded events of his life.