Right-Believing Tamar the Great, Queen of Georgia

Holy Right-Believing Queen Tamar of Georgia was born around the 1160s, the daughter of King George III of the Bagrationi dynasty. She co-ruled with her father from 1178 and became sole ruler of Georgia in 1184. Her reign is remembered as Georgia's golden age, marking the kingdom's political, military, and cultural high point. Her first marriage, to the Rus' prince Yuri (George) Bogolyubsky, ended in annulment; her second husband, the Ossetian prince David Soslan, gave her a son, George IV Lasha, and a daughter, Rusudan. In 1204 Georgian forces under her rule won a decisive victory at the Battle of Basiani against a coalition of Muslim rulers. Tamar was a great patron of the Church and culture — the poet Shota Rustaveli dedicated his epic "The Knight in the Panther's Skin" to her — and she convened the Ruisi-Urbnisi Church Council, which removed unworthy hierarchs, while sponsoring extensive church and monastery construction. She spent her final years at the cave monastery of Vardzia, where she died peacefully in 1213. The Georgian Orthodox Church glorified her as a right-believing queen for her mercy toward the poor, widows, and orphans. Her feast is kept on 1 May (Old Style) / 14 May (New Style), and also on the Sunday of the Myrrh-Bearing Women.