ABSTRACT
COMMENTARY 33 Some churches and hishoprics of Kalcheti (ref. Chap. 5, p. 189, nn. I, 2 and 4, p. 190, n. I) (a) Martukop=Martqopi. 'Beyond the mountains' - that is beyond the Kukhetis-mta, forming the watershed between the Iori and the Kura. Only some thirty versts from Tiflis, it
was the headquarters of the 'banner' covering the Kartlian border (cf. Commentary 29). 'Situated in a magnificent valley, watered by a river of the same name' (Brosset, V A, 1 er rapport, p. 5 I), the land was rich and thickly populated down to the invasion of Shah Abbas in 1615. In the mid-nineteenth century, Bakradze remarked ruins extending over an area of four versts (Akty, Vol. v, pp. 1°52-3). The cupola church of Ghutaeha (The Transfiguration of our text) stood higher up the valley of the Martqopis-tsqali - 'a great building surrounded by walls and towers like a citadel' (Wak./Brosset, p. 303; and cf. Wak./Jan., pp. 114-15 and n. 373). It was reputed to have been founded in the sixth century A.D. by St Anthony, one of the thirteen Syrian (Monophysite) Fathers who took refuge in Georgia and who, in spite of the later adherence of the Georgian Church to the tenets of the Council of Chalcedon, became cult figures in many parts of Georgia (cf. Lang, LL, p. 81). Of the Ghutaeba Brosset (V A, p. 54) remarked that nothing remained but the wall. Amiranashvili, p. 196, cites the late K. S. Kekelidze for the view that these 'Syrian' fathers were, for the most part, Georgian monks, who fled from Syria to avoid the persecution ofMonophysites. The ascetic movement which they sponsored was, in effect, pan-Christian. Cf. the movement of the Culdees ( = Cele De, companions of God) in Ireland - which was possibly initiated by Armenian and Coptic priests and masons (the latter always an itinerant body of men) as early as the sixth century (see Allen, PS, p. 85, n. 134, citing sources). It is even possible that the Culdee Ut Suanaigh round Rathan (where MIle Henry noted remarkable Armenian architectural influence) were Siunians (ofSiunik) in origin.
