About the Holy Relic Of Queen St. Ketevan

Queen St. Ketevan was the queen of Kakheti. She was born into a royal family. She is also known as the Ketevan martyr. She was killed in shiraz by Shah Abbas after long torture for refusing to convert to Islam and refusing her faith in Christianity. After the death of Ketevan, her body was smuggled to her son, and while transferring her body, they lost her arms which were found by Portuguese chronicles and were shifted to Goa in the St. Augustine convent. After many years Queen St.  Ketevans relics were found in Goa. 

Queen St. Ketevan 

Queen St. Ketevan, also known as the Ketevan the Martyr, was the queen of Kakheti, a kingdom located in eastern Georgia and is known by the same name. 

Kakheti was a very small province curled up between two empires, The Ottoman Empire (Turkey in the present) and the Safavid empire (Iran is present). According to the reports and experts, Queen St. Ketevan was born in the royal family of Bagrationi and got married to David, the heir of the Kakheti empire. One of the Davids brothers, Constantine, was sent to Shah Abbas 1 where he converted to Islam. Sending a royal family member as a hostage to their superior power to maintain peace was a very common practice. 

David’s father, Alexander ll, surrendered the throne in David’s favour. But after David’s death, he was forced to become the king. To increase his control, Shah Abbas 1 sent Constantine to kill his father and his remaining brothers to take absolute power in 1605.  According to the experts, Constantine proposed to Queen St. Ketevan for marriage. But the proposal angered the nobles of Kakheti, who assassinated Constantine and pleaded with Shah Abbas to make Teimuraz, the son of Queen St. Ketevan and David the king. But Shah Abbas 1 sent Queen St. Ketevan, and two of her sons and Teimuraz were forced to be kept as prisoners in the Persian court.Queen St. Ketevan was also imprisoned from 1614 until she died in 1624.

According to the Georgian expert, Queen St. Ketevan was demanded to convert to Islam which she did not agree with and was asked by Shah Abbas to torture her. When she refused, she was tortured and killed by putting hot rods in her body. Her body was buried in Shiraz, but two Portuguese monks she had befriended tried to manage and smuggle her body to Teimuraz in Kakheti. When the body was shifted for safety reasons, they were lost. According to the experts, the Portuguese chronicles found Queen St. Ketevan’s arm, and they buried it in the Chapel in St. Augustine Church in Goa. 

Queen St. Ketevan’s Relics 

St. Queen Ketevan was the queen of Georgia in the 17th century. St. Queen Ketevan relics were found in Goa in 2005. Queen St. Ketevan Relics were found at St. Augustine convent In old Goa. Ketevan Relics were bought in Goa by the Portuguese monks in 1627. After the talk between the Indian and Georgian governments, Ketevan relics were sent to Georgia for an exhibition for six months in 2017. Many Georgians welcomed the Ketevan relics by the Beatitude Ilia 2, the Catholicos-Patriarch of Georgia, in 2017. After taking the relics to different churches, they were returned to India in 2018. After which, the Georgian government appealed to the Indian government to permanently transfer the Ketevan relics because of their historical and spiritual importance to the Georgians. After this, India decided to gift one part of the Ketevan relics to Georgia. 

St. Augustine convent in old Goa. 

St. Augustine convent in old goa is one of the most spectacular monuments in Goa. It reproduces numerous travellers. St. Augustine convent was completed in 1602 and is included in world heritage, churches and convents in old Goa. St. Augustine convent was built on the top of Monte Santo between 1597 and 1602 by the Augustinian Friars who came to Goa in 1587. The church was vacated in 1835. The subsequent negligence caused the church vault to collapse in 1842. The body of the church collapsed after 1871. The bell was removed and was shifted to Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception Church in Panjim, where it remains till now. The half tower of the church collapsed in 1938, and currently, only half of the tower remains. The Church had four towers from which only one remains to date. The remaining tower has a four-storied structure. After the excavations were done, they showed that the complex had eight chapels, four altars and a convent.

Conclusion 

St.Queen Ketevan was the queen of Kakheti and was born in a royal family. The kingdom was located in eastern Georgia. Kakheti was a small province between the Ottoman Empire and the Safavid empire. She married David, the heir of Kakheti. Ketevan was asked to convert to Islam by Shah Abbas, but she refused and was tortured and killed. After the death, the Portuguese smuggled the body, and the relics of Ketevan were found in the St. Augustine convent in old goa. The relics were then gifted to the Gregorian government by the Indian government in 2017 for six months. The Georgian government asked for a permanent transfer, and one part of the relic was gifted to Georgia by India.