Saint Euthymius (Takaishvili)

Commemorated on January 3.

Finally, the Soviet victory over fascist Germany created conditions favorable for the return of the national treasures to Georgia. According to an agreement between Stalin and De Gaulle, the treasures and their faithful protector were loaded onto an American warplane and flown back to their motherland on April 11, 1945. When he finally stepped off the plane and set foot on Georgian soil, Saint Ekvtime bowed deeply and kissed the earth where he stood. Georgia greeted its long-lost son with great honor. The people overwhelmed Saint Ekvtime with attention and care, restored his university professorship, and recognized him as an active member of the Academy of Sciences. They healed the wounds that had been inflicted on his heart.

Exhausted by the separation from his motherland and the woes of emigration, Saint Ekvtime rejoined society with the last of his strength. But mankind’s enemy became envious of the victory of good over evil and rose up against Saint Ekvtime’s unshakable spirit. In 1951 the Chekists arrested his stepdaughter, Lydia Poltoratskaya. Saint Ekvtime, who by that time was seriously ill, was now left without his caregiver.

In 1952, without any reasonable explanation, Saint Ekvtime was forbidden to lecture at the university he himself had helped to found, and he was secretly placed under house arrest. The people who had reverently greeted him upon his return now trembled in fear of his persecution and imminent death. Many tried to visit and support Saint Ekvtime, but they were forbidden. On February 21, 1953, Saint Ekvtime died of a heart attack, and three days later a group of approximately forty mourners accompanied the virtuous prince to his eternal resting place.

On February 10, 1963, the centennial of Saint Ekvtime’s birth, his body was reburied at the Didube Pantheon in Tbilisi. When his grave was uncovered, it was revealed that not only his body, but even his clothing and footwear had remained incorrupt. Saint Ekvtime’s relics were moved once again, to the Pantheon at the Church of Saint Davit of Gareji on Mtatsminda, where they remain today.

The body of Nino Poltoratskaya-Takaishvili was brought from Leville (France) and buried next to Saint Ekvtime on February 22, 1987.

The Holy Synod of the Georgian Apostolic Orthodox Church canonized Saint Ekvtime on October 17, 2002, and joyously proclaimed him a “Man of God.”