Who was St Ketevan, the Georgian martyr queen whose relics rested in Goa?

The first visit by an external affairs minister to Georgia, since the country’s independence, has already made headlines for a seemingly symbolic act.

External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar on Saturday handed over to the Georgian government and the Georgian Orthodox Church the relics of queen Ketevan, a 17th century saint, who was murdered by the Safavid empire.

The relics of queen Ketevan were brought to Goa by Augustinian monks after her death and were kept interred in the St Augustine Complex, which later became abandoned. The relics were discovered in 2005. In 2013, DNA testing confirmed their authenticity, prompting Georgia to seek their return.

Who was Queen Ketevan?

Ketevan (1560-1624) was the queen of Kakheti, a kingdom located in a region of eastern Georgia that bears the same name.

Kakheti was a small kingdom, which was nestled between two mighty Islamic empires: The Ottoman empire (in present-day Turkey) and the Safavid empire (in present-day Iran). According to the website of the Orthodox Church of America, Ketevan was born in the Bagrationi royal family and was married to David, the heir of the Kakheti throne. One of the brothers of David, Constantine, was sent to live in the Safavid court of emperor Shah Abbas I, where he converted to Islam. The sending of royal family members as 'hostages' to a superior power to ensure peace was a common practice at the time.

David's father, Alexander II, had abdicated the throne in favour of David, but was forced to become king again after David died suddenly in 1602. In a bid to increase his control, Shah Abbas I sent Constantine, now named Constantine-Mirza, to kill his father and remaining brother to seize power in 1605. According to accounts, Constantine-Mirza even proposed marriage to Queen Ketevan. The proposition outraged the nobles of Kakhetia, who killed Constantine-Mirza and pleaded with Shah Abbas I to recognise Teimuraz, the son of Ketevan and David, as king.

Given the might of the Safavid empire under Shah Abbas I, her son, king Teimuraz was forced to send his mother and two of his own sons, Alexander and Levan, to be prisoners in the Persian court. While the two princes were killed quickly, queen Ketevan was imprisoned from 1614 until her death in 1624.

 According to Georgian accounts, Shah Abbas I demanded she convert to Islam as retaliation to the alleged recalcitrance of Teimuraz, who had sought to take the help of Russia's Czar against the Safavid empire. Shah Abbas I intended to have Queen Ketevan join his harem.

When she refused, Shah Abbas I ordered that Queen Ketevan be tortured and strangled. The account of her death by the Orthodox Church of America makes for horrifying reading. “Queen Ketevan was robed in festive attire and led out to a crowded square. Her persecutors subjected her to indescribable torment: They placed a red-hot copper cauldron on her head, tore at her chest with heated tongs, pierced her body with glowing spears, tore off her fingernails, nailed a board to her spine, and finally split her forehead with a red-hot spade," the account says.

Rana Safvi wrote in The Hindu in 2018, "She was buried in Shiraz, but two Portuguese Augustinian monks whom she had befriended in Shiraz were privy to the location of her grave and managed to smuggle her body out. She was seen as a martyr as she had died refusing to convert. Her body was exhumed and her remains were taken to Teimuraz in Kakheti. However, when her remains were being shifted to safety amid raids on the region, they were lost. According to a Portuguese chronicle, the Augustinian friars found her right arm and buried it in the Chapter Chapel in St. Augustine Church in Goa..."

Why she is venerated

Queen Ketevan was canonised as a saint by the Georgian Orthodox Church shortly after her death. Her place as a subject of veneration is attributed to her courageous stand against the demand for forcible conversion. The Orthodox Church accounts credit her with delaying, if not preventing, the Islamisation of Georgia. The Georgian Orthodox Church remains one of the most powerful bodies in the country, with figures in 2013 claiming 80 per cent of the country's population were adherents to the faith.