Nikoloz Cholokashvili

Who was Nikoloz Cholokashvili?

Nikoloz Cholokashvili, known in Europe as Niceforo Irbachi, was a Georgian Orthodox priest, politician and diplomat.

Born into a prominent aristocratic family, he was educated at a Greek clerical school in Italy. From 1608 to 1614, he served later a priest at the court of Teimuraz I, king of Kakheti, eastern Georgia. During the invasion by Shah Abbas I in 1614, he left for Jerusalem. In 1625, Teimuraz assigned him to lead an embassy to Europe in order to get support against the Persian aggression. The mission, however, went in vain; the Europeans at that time were too involved in the Thirty-Years War to be concerned about the fate of a small Christian kingdom in the Caucasus. While visiting Rome, he helped to publish a Georgian dictionary, the first printed book in Georgian, in 1629. Upon returning in Georgia, he was ordained as a senior priest at Metekhi Church, Tbilisi, 1629-1632. In 1632, he was invited by the Mingrelian prince Levan II Dadiani, and appointed him as a minister. From 1643 to 1649, he lived again in Jerusalem, where he served as an archimandrite of the Georgian Monastery of the Cross.