Venerable
Venerable Isidore of Samtavisi
VI век
Also known as: Исидор Самтависский, Исидор Мабугский
Venerable Isidore of Samtavisi — one of the Thirteen Syrian Fathers who came to Kartli (Eastern Georgia) in the mid-6th century under Venerable John of Zedazeni; he founded the Samtavisi Monastery on the Rekhula River, diverting part of its course with a blow of his staff.
Venerable Isidore came from the region of Mabbug (Hierapolis) in Syria. He joined Venerable John of Zedazeni and eleven other ascetics who came to Kartli (Eastern Georgia) in the mid-6th century to strengthen the Christianity earlier planted by Equal-to-the-Apostles Nina.
When Venerable John of Zedazeni, at the direction of the Theotokos who had appeared to him, tested the faith of his twelve disciples before their dispersal to different regions of Georgia, it fell to Isidore to found a community on the Rekhula (Lekhura) River. According to tradition, he struck the river with his staff and commanded it to turn back and follow him to the site of the future monastery — a narrative that echoes almost word-for-word the tradition of St. Ise (Jesse) of Tsilkani's miracle on the Ksani River (see the separate entry ise_of_cilcani), reflecting a shared hagiographic canon characteristic of the group of Thirteen Fathers.
The monastery he founded — Samtavisi, in honor of the Not-Made-by-Hands Icon of the Savior, on the eastern bank of the Rekhula in Kartli — should not be confused with the Samtavro Monastery in Mtskheta (founded in the 4th century by King Mirian III at the site of Equal-to-the-Apostles Nina's preaching; the relics resting there belong not to Isidore but to another of the Thirteen Fathers, Venerable Abibus of Nekresi).
IMPORTANT IDENTITY CORRECTION: the original stub was titled "Isidore of Samtavro" and its sole image was explicitly sourced (per the source field) from the entry for the entirely different saint Venerable Isidore of Pelusium (a 4th-5th century Egyptian monk-writer, see the separate entry isidore_of_pelusium). Research established that the saint's correct name is "Isidore of Samtavisi" (after the monastery Samtavisi he founded), which appears to have been distorted in the original data by a single extra letter into "Samtavro-sky" — leading to a mistaken identification with the well-known Samtavro Monastery in Mtskheta, founded centuries earlier and associated with a different saint.