John of Zedazeni and his twelve disciples, known collectively as the Thirteen Syrian (or Assyrian) Fathers, were a group of monastic missionaries who came to the kingdom of Iberia (eastern Georgia) in the sixth century and are remembered as the founders of organized monastic life in the Georgian Church. By tradition John had received his spiritual training in the region of Antioch and was known for his ascetic labors and gifts of healing. The synaxarion relates that the Mother of God appeared to him and directed him to take twelve monks and go to Georgia, the land already enlightened by Saint Nino, Equal-to-the-Apostles, to strengthen the faith of its people.
Having chosen twelve disciples after fasting and prayer, John led them to Georgia, where, according to the tradition, the king and the Catholicos Evlavios were forewarned of their coming and received them with honor near the ancient capital of Mtskheta. With the Catholicos's blessing John and his companions settled on Mount Zedazeni, on the site of a former pagan sanctuary, where John established his own ascetic dwelling. The Fathers are credited with introducing and spreading the communal and eremitic monastic life throughout the country.
After a period together, the tradition holds that John sent his disciples out across Georgia to preach and to found monasteries, while he himself remained at Zedazeni. The disciples settled in widely scattered places and became the patrons of major centers of Georgian monasticism, several of which endure to the present day. Because they are commemorated together as one company on May 7, the group is honored as a single feast, though most of the individual Fathers also have their own commemorations and dedicated lives.
Modern scholarship is divided over the historical details of the Fathers' origins, with differing views as to whether they were Syrians (Assyrians), Assyrian-educated Georgians, and whether they came primarily as missionaries or as monastic refugees. What is not disputed is their foundational place in the Georgian monastic tradition, which credits them with establishing the monasteries and sees from which Georgian asceticism subsequently grew.
