Saint Ekvtime Takaishvili

Ekvtime Takaishvili (sometimes anglicised as Euthymius Takaishvili, also spelled Taqaishvili, Georgian: ექვთიმე თაყაიშვილი; 3 January 1862 – 21 February 1953) was a Georgian historian, archaeologist, public benefactor and Eastern Orthodox saint. Born in the village of Likhauri in the Guriantskiy prefecture of the Ozurgeti uezd, Tiflis Governorate to a local nobleman Svimon Takaishvili. He graduated from St. Petersburg University in 1887. From 1887 to 1917, he lectured on the history of Georgia at various prestigious schools in Tbilisi, including the Tbilisi Gymnasium for Nobility. During these years, he was actively involved in extensive scholarly activities and chaired, from 1907 to 1921, the Society of History and Ethnography of Georgia. Between 1907 and 1910, he organized a series of archaeological expeditions to the historic Georgian region of Tao-Klarjeti (now part of Turkey). After the February Revolution, he engaged also in politics, taking part in the establishment of the National Democratic Party of Georgia in 1917 and being elected to a post of Deputy Chairman in the Constituent Assembly of the Democratic Republic of Georgia from 1919 to 1921. In 1917 he was among the founders and professors of the Tbilisi State University (TSU). He lost his tenure both in the parliament and at the TSU in 1921, when Bolshevik Russia's 11th Red Army put an end to Georgia's independence. He followed the Georgian government in their French exile, taking the Georgian national treasury – numerous precious pieces of Georgian material culture - with him to Europe. The treasury, filling 39 immense boxes, was shipped to Marseille and placed in a bank depository. Subsequently, this precious cargo was transferred to one of the banks in Paris. Although the treasury was officially the property of the Georgian government-in-exile, it was actually Ekvtime Takaishvili who supervised this huge collection.