Hagiographic traditions and Christian realities of Samegrelo

Samegrelo is a particularly interesting region for studying the identity and uniqueness of Georgian Christian culture. This book analyzes various source materials relevant to this topic. Christian cultural ideals, paradigms or symbols are clearly revealed in these sources. Source materials are distinguished thematically, chronologically, and functionally: words, concepts, phrases; poetic or other genres folkloric texts including proverbs, parables, myths; relics depicting liturgical, ethnographic-ritual practices and related terms; micro and macro toponyms; vocabulary containing symbols of trees, plants, animals and numbers; facts about everyday life. The book is divided into separate articles and sub-chapters based on the content and systematic grouping of the obtained information. Through comparing these genres, the parallels between hagiography and the mentioned materials are particularly interesting and reveal obvious similarities between them. Hagiography is the main source of medieval Georgian religious knowledge. Certain systems of thought; a special form of contemplation of the world; aesthetic and ethical views; philosophical thought - all of these were formed in Georgia during the medieval period and are sometimes expressed in the form of theoretical discussions in Georgian hagiography, and sometimes through pieces of art. The worldview established by Christianity was most clearly reflected in hagiography. Since it is the most reliable source for the study of medieval thought, the assessment of the Christian realities of Samegrelo is mainly based on comparison with hagiographic literary traditions.