Saint John (Chrysostom) IV Catholicos of Georgia

Birth and Upbringing at Shio-Mgvime

The Narration of Saint Shio's Miracles, attributed to Catholicos Basil III, relates that the hitherto childless parents of John prayed at length to Saint Shio of Mgvime for a son, and following his birth sent him to be raised at the Shio-Mgvime Monastery.

Shio-Mgvime is a medieval Georgian monastic complex near Mtskheta, roughly 30 km from Tbilisi, founded by the 6th-century monk Shio, one of the Thirteen Assyrian Fathers who came to Georgia as Christian missionaries. By the end of the 6th century it is said to have housed some 2,000 monks, and it remained under the patronage of the Catholicos of Georgia throughout the medieval period.

It was in this setting that John acquired the wisdom and eloquence reflected in his epithet 'Chrysostom.'

The Two Catholicoi Named Chrysostom

A second Georgian Catholicos also bore the surname Chrysostom: John, sometimes called John V, who served from approximately 1033 to 1049 (died c. 1048) and was a disciple of Catholicos-Patriarch Melchizedek I.

Because the two figures shared identical epithets and comparable spiritual reputations, they have at times been conflated by historians. John IV is the earlier of the two, distinguished by his catholicate around 980–1001.

Sources and Documentation

John IV is a genuinely obscure saint with limited external documentation. There is no dedicated Wikipedia or OrthodoxWiki article for him; searches for the figure and for the List of Catholicoi of Georgia return no coverage of his life.

The principal external witnesses are the OCA synaxarion and the Mystagogy Resource Center (Sanidopoulos). As with much of the obscure Georgian and pre-schism record, the entry rests on these few sources and warrants scholarly and clergy review.