Nino (saint)

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Icon of Saint Nino

Saint Nino (also Nina , Nona , Christiana , Chrischona ; Georgian წმინდა ნინო ; * around 300 probably in Cappadocia or Italy ; † around 361 in Bodbe , Kakheti , Georgia ) was a missionary and healer who initiated the conversion of the Georgians to Christianity . The Georgian Orthodox Church equates her with the apostles and calls her the "Illuminator of Georgia".

Life

The Christian Nino fled from slavery from Cappadocia, Central Anatolia , across the Lesser Caucasus to Iberia in what is now Georgia. There she lived in a hut in the capital, Mtskheta . According to the sources, she gained a reputation as a herbalist healer. When a sick child was carried through the streets according to the custom of the country to find healing, she took care of the child, prayed to heal it and gave it back to the mother. When the terminally ill Georgian Queen Nana found out about this, she was brought to Nino and was also cured by her.

Basilica over the tomb of St. Nino, Bodbe
Baptistery at the "source of the Nino"

King Mirian III , Nana's husband, wanted to reward her with gold and silver, but Nino refused. She referred to her God, who gave her the strength to heal. When Mirian was surprised by a darkness on a hunt, he promised after unsuccessful prayers to the traditional gods that he would worship the god Ninos when he was freed from his plight. Mirian elevated Christianity to the state religion in 337 (according to the Georgian Orthodox Apostle Church 326), sent an envoy to Emperor Constantine I in Constantinople on Nino's recommendation and asked to send Christian priests to Georgia.

Nino later lived as a hermit in the Caspian Mountains in or near a Cappadocian monastery. Nino is said to have always carried a grapevine cross that was held together by her own hair. This cross is kept in the Sioni Cathedral in Tbilisi . In 361 she fell ill on her way back from Tusheti , an area in eastern Georgia, to her place of residence. She died near Bodbe in the Kakheti region and was buried there. King Mirian had a church built over her grave. Later, the Ninozminda Orthodox Monastery was founded there. Bodbe Monastery houses the nunnery of St. George .

The source of the Nino is considered to be one of the most sacred places in Georgia. The spring socket is located in a ravine below the Bodbe monastery and serves as a baptismal font, the spring water is said to have healing powers.

Lore

Nino's achievement was first mentioned in 403 in Tyrannius Rufinus Historia Ecclesiastica (X, 11), who had learned her life story in 395 in Jerusalem from the Georgian prince Bakur. Rufinus did not mention her name, however, only that it was a woman who came to Georgia as a prisoner. The name Nino was first mentioned in the collection of manuscripts (S-1141) The Conversion of Kartlis (Georgia) in the Schatberdi Monastery (today Yeni Rabat near Ardanuç in northeastern Turkey) from 960 to 970 .

According to an Arabic edition of Agathangelos from the 6th century, Georgia is said to have been Christianized at the same time as Armenia by the Armenian Saint Gregory . The Georgian tradition, probably written down in the middle of the 8th century, now assigns the parallel missionary work in Georgia to the Nino. Armenian hagiographers described Nino (Armenian Nune) as a missionary of Armenia in the wake of the Armenian martyr Hripsime , as the niece of the Jerusalem patriarch Juvenal, who lived 100 years later, or as a Roman princess.

Adoration

Her Orthodox memorial days are October 27th and January 14th, and Catholic ones are December 15th. The Armenian Apostolic Church will commemorate her on October 29th. St. Nino is the patroness of the order of women, sisters of the childhood of Jesus and Mary, founded in 1807 under the protection of St. Christiana . The Georgian state honored Nino in 1994 with a monument created by the sculptor Zurab Tsereteli in the capital Tbilisi .

literature

Monographs

  • Georgia. In: Horst Robert Balz, Gerhard Müller (Hrsg.): Theologische Realenzyklopädie. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin et al. 1984, ISBN 3-11-008579-8 , p. 398 ff.
  • Hubert Jedin (ed.): Handbook of Church History . Volume II / 1. Special edition. Freiburg (Breisgau) 1985, ISBN 3-451-20454-1 , p. 198.
  • David Marshall Lang (Ed.): Lives and Legends of Georgian Saints. Selected and translated from the original texts. 2nd edition. Mowbrays, London et al. 1976, ISBN 0-264-66333-0 .
  • Constantine B. Lerner (Ed.): The wellspring of Georgian historiography. The early medieval historical chronicle The conversion of Kartli and The life of St. Nino. Translated with introduction, commentary and indices. Bennett & Bloom, London 2004, ISBN 1-898948-65-8 .
  • Fairy von Lilienfeld : Office and spiritual authority of St. Nino, "Apostle and Evangelist" from East Georgia, according to the oldest Georgian sources. In: Michael Kohlbacher, Markus Lesinski (eds.): Horizons of Christianity. Festschrift for Friedrich Heyer on his 85th birthday (= Oikonomia. Vol. 34). Chair for the History and Theology of the Christian East et al., Erlangen et al. 1994, ISBN 3-923119-33-X , pp. 224–249.
  • Gertrud Pätsch (Ed.): The life of Kartlis. A chronicle from Georgia 300–1200 (= Dieterich Collection. Vol. 330, ZDB -ID 987299-1 ). Dieterich, Leipzig 1985.
  • Werner Seibt (ed.): The Christianization of the Caucasus. Lectures at the International Symposium (Vienna, December 9-12, 1999) (= Publications of the Commission for Byzantine Studies . Vol. 9 = Austrian Academy of Sciences, Philosophical-Historical Class. Memoranda. Vol. 296). Publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 2002, ISBN 3-7001-3016-3 .
  • Eva Maria Synek: Holy Women of Early Christianity. On the images of women in hagiographic texts of the Christian East (= The Eastern Christianity. NF Vol. 43). Augustinus-Verlag, Würzburg 1994, ISBN 3-7613-0178-2 , pp. 80-138 (also: Vienna, University, dissertation, 1990).
  • Guliko Sophia Vashalomidze: The Saint Nino. In: Guliko Sophia Vashalomidze: The position of women in ancient Georgia. Georgian gender relations especially during the Sasanid period (= Orientalia Biblica et Christiana. Vol. 16). Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2007, ISBN 978-3-447-05459-1 , pp. 48–78 (At the same time: Halle, University, dissertation, 2005: The position of women in ancient Georgia, especially during the Sasanid period. ).
  • Friedrich Wilhelm Bautz:  Christiana. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 1, Bautz, Hamm 1975. 2nd, unchanged edition Hamm 1990, ISBN 3-88309-013-1 , Sp. 1004.  ( Article / beginning of article in the Internet archive )

Magazine articles

  • Michael Tarchnisvili: Saint Nino, convert from Georgia. In: Analecta Ordinis Sancti Basilii Magni. Section 2: Articuli, Documenta Collectanea, Miscellanea, Bibliographia. Ser. 2, Vol. 1, 1949/1953, ZDB -ID 301259-1 , pp. 572-581.
  • Peter Hauptmann : Under the vine cross of St. Nino. Church history of Georgia at a glance. In: Church in the East. Vol. 17, 1974, ISSN  0453-9273 , pp. 9-41.

Web links

Commons : Holy Nino  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Mesrob K. Krikorian: The Armenian Church. Materials on Armenian history, theology and culture. Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main et al. 2002, ISBN 3-631-38702-4 , p. 86.
personal data
SURNAME Nino
ALTERNATIVE NAMES წმ. ნინო (Georgian); Nina; Nona; Christiana; Chrischona
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Healer, converted Georgia to Christianity
DATE OF BIRTH at 325
PLACE OF BIRTH Cappadocia , Central Anatolia
DATE OF DEATH at 361
Place of death Bodbe ( Georgia )