The Thirteen Assyrian Fathers
David belonged to the Thirteen Assyrian Fathers, a group of monks who arrived in Georgia during the sixth century, traditionally said to have come from Mesopotamia. Georgian church historians credit them with founding several monasteries and hermitages and with initiating the monastic movement in Georgia after the country's conversion to Christianity. Modern scholarship is divided as to whether the fathers were Assyrians, Assyrian-educated Georgians, missionaries, or refugees.
David was a disciple of Saint John of Zedazeni, who is traditionally reckoned the leader of the company. After their arrival the fathers dispersed across the land, each associated with a monastery or hermitage; David is named first among them in the traditional list and is identified with the Gareja foundation.
Hermit Above Tbilisi
According to the Georgian tradition, David first settled on the mountain above Tbilisi together with his spiritual son Lucian, spending his days in prayer and, by tradition, blessing the city from the height. Once a week, the account relates, David and Lucian would go down into the city to preach.
The synaxarion relates that David's growing influence provoked opposition from fire-worshippers, who, it is said, used an expectant woman to accuse him of fathering her child. By tradition the saint touched his staff to her womb and bade the unborn child name its true father, and the child did so from within the womb. The crowd then turned on the woman and stoned her, an outcome that, the account says, deeply grieved David and contributed to his withdrawal into the wilderness.
The Gareja Wilderness and Lavra
David and Lucian withdrew to a cave in the Gareja semi-desert of Kakheti, where, by tradition, they lived on herbs and the bark of trees. The synaxarion relates that the Lord sent them deer which Lucian milked, and that when David made the sign of the Cross over the milk it was turned into cheese. As others were drawn to join them, the wilderness filled with monks and a monastic community took shape.
This foundation became the David Gareja lavra, established with his disciples Dodo and Lucian, and it grew into a major center of Georgian monastic life. David died in the second half of the sixth century and was buried at the lavra. In the ninth century his tomb was made a place of public worship on the initiative of Hilarion the Iberian.
The Pilgrimage and the Stone of Grace
Tradition records that David led a pilgrimage toward the Holy Land but, on reaching the hills surrounding Jerusalem, judged himself unworthy to enter the city; he climbed one of the hills, knelt at what the Georgian account calls the Ridge or Place of Grace, and did not pass through the gates. He took three stones from the Holy Land to carry back to Iberia. By the tradition, an angel revealed to the patriarch of Jerusalem that David had borne away the grace of the holy city in the stones, and envoys overtook him near Nablus and recovered two of them.
David returned to Georgia with the one remaining stone, which came to be venerated as a miracle-working stone associated with healing. Since the 1990s this stone has been kept at the Holy Trinity (Sameba) Cathedral in Tbilisi.
Relics & Shrines
David was buried in the David Gareja lavra he founded, and his tomb became a place of public veneration from the ninth century. Georgian tradition associates his relics with miracles of healing, including the giving of sight to the blind. The stone he is said to have brought from the Holy Land is preserved at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Tbilisi.
