Prochorus the Iberian

Menologium written by Prochorus in Nuskhuri, AD 1040, kept at the Bodleian Library.

According to the Georgian Vita of Prochorus, he was born in the Kingdom of the Iberians under the name of George of Shavsheti (Georgian: გიორგი შავშელი, romanized: giorgi shavsheli) and was raised in the local monastery, where he became a monk, and later a priest. Around 1010–1015, aged 30, Prochorus would leave for the Holy Land. He would stay for number of years in the Lavra of Saint Sabas.[2][3]

Prochorus later would move to Jerusalem in an attempt to gather his Georgian compatriots who were scattered throughout the Palestinian monasteries. Per Vita, Prochorus would construct the monastery in 1064[4] by the order of the King Bagrat IV of Georgia[5] and his donations brought to the Holy Land by George the Hagiorite.[6][7]

In these times the blessed Prochorus, according to the wish of the pious king Bagrat, constructed the Monastery of the Cross in Jerusalem... Afterwards, with God's providence, he started to build the monastery on the western side, that holds a name of Holy Cross. He built the church and decorated it with ornaments of all kinds. And he collected the ascetic brothers, they were nearly eighty. He gave them a rule and the canons similar to those of Saint Sabas. And afterwards he built a hostel for pilgrims, spacious and beautiful. And when with the help of God he achieved all these things, his body became weak from works and years. Then he chose one of his disciples, George, and made him superior... After that, he took with him two of his disciples, a priest and a monk, and went to the Arnon desert. Soon he left this world to meet the Lord.[8]

Prochorus died in 1066.[9] He is venerated as a saint and his feast day in the Eastern Orthodox Church is February 12.[10]

• Charkiewicz, Jarosław (2005) Gruzińscy święci, Warszawa: Warszawska Metropolia Prawosławna, ISBN 83-920093-7-1,
• Salia, Kalistrat (1983) History of the Georgian Nation, Académie Française, Paris
• Tchekhanovets, Yana (2018) The Caucasian Archaeology of the Holy Land, Armenian, Georgian and Albanian Communities Between the Fourth and Eleventh Centuries CE, Brill Publishers, ISBN 978-90-04-36555-1