The Holy Monk-Martyrs Shio the New, David, Gabriel, and Paul of David-Gareji
Life
Shio, David, Gabriel, and Paul were monks of the David-Gareji wilderness in eastern Georgia who were killed during a raid on their monastery at the close of the seventeenth century. They are commemorated together on June 1, with the year of their death generally given as 1696; the broader synaxis of Gareji fathers slain by Dagestani raiders is dated across the period 1696-1700.
The fullest surviving account centers on Shio, called 'the New' to distinguish him from earlier Georgian monastics of that name and also styled Shio of Akhalkalaki. His three companions, David, Gabriel, and Paul, are remembered chiefly as the brothers who suffered alongside him, and the four are venerated as a single commemoration of monk-martyrs.
Timeline 4 moments
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17th centuryOrigins in KartliShio was born in the village of Vedzisi in the Kartli region of Georgia to Papuna and Tamar, described as wealthy and influential parents who had eight children, five sons and three daughters.
After his parents' deathFamily tragedy and withdrawalFollowing the death of his parents, Shio's brothers quarreled bitterly over their inheritance until the eldest killed the youngest. Disturbed by the violence, Shio resolved to leave the world and, on the counsel of his spiritual father, set out for the David-Gareji Monastery.
17th centuryMonastic life at David-GarejiThe abbot Onopre, who had earlier invited him, received Shio joyfully and tonsured him a monk. Shio was known for tireless labor, humility, and love for the brotherhood, and in time he oversaw the affairs of the monastery during the abbot's absences.
1696The raid and martyrdomWhile Abbot Onopre was away, a band of Dagestani raiders stormed the monastery grounds after Vespers and the evening meal. They seized Hieromonk Shio together with the monks David, Gabriel, and Paul and put them to death, along with other brothers who attempted to flee.
Contributions & Legacy
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The David-Gareji Wilderness
David-Gareji is a complex of cave monasteries in the semi-desert of eastern Georgia, long a center of Georgian monastic life. Its remote situation near the eastern frontier left it exposed to raids, and accounts of the period record repeated attacks on the community by Dagestani bands.
Shio and his companions belonged to this brotherhood at the end of the seventeenth century. The sources present their deaths not as an isolated event but as part of a wider series of killings of Gareji fathers, the synaxis of which is dated to the years 1696-1700.
The Sack of the Monastery
Beyond the killing of the monks, the accounts describe the raiders despoiling the monastery: they destroyed nearly all of its property, seized and cut the clerical vestments to pieces, and hacked the holy icons apart with their axes. This desecration of the church and its furnishings is preserved as part of the memory of the martyrdom.
Relics
By tradition, at the end of the seventeenth century King Archil of Georgia gathered the bones of the martyrs and buried them with reverence in a large stone reliquary set to the left of the altar in the Transfiguration Church of the David-Gareji Monastery. This detail is attested in the OrthoChristian/Pravoslavie account of the saints rather than in the OCA life relied on above.
