Nikoloz Cholokashvili

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Nikoloz Cholokashvili (also known as Nicholas Irubakidze-Cholokashvili; Europe called him Niceforo Irbachi) lived from 1585 to 1658. He came from a noble Georgian family and studied at a Greek clerical school in Italy. He served as a priest at the court of King Teimuraz I of Kakheti from 1608 to 1614. After Shah Abbas I invaded in 1614, he fled to Jerusalem. In 1625 Teimuraz sent him on a diplomatic mission to Europe to seek help against Persia, but the mission failed as Europe was busy with the Thirty Years’ War. While in Rome, he helped publish the first printed Georgian book, a dictionary, in 1629. Returning to Georgia, he became a senior priest at Metekhi Church in Tbilisi (1629–1632). In 1632 Levan II Dadiani of Mingrelia appointed him as a minister. From 1643 to 1649 he lived in Jerusalem again, serving as archimandrite of the Georgian Monastery of the Cross. He returned to Mingrelia in 1649 and was made Catholicos of Abkhazia (western Georgia) in 1650. After Levan II’s death in 1657, he was arrested by the new prince Vameq III Dadiani and died in prison in 1658.