Saint Mirian III of Iberia

Mirian III (Georgian: მირიან III; c. 258/277 — 361) was a king (mepe) of Iberia or Kartli (Georgia), contemporaneous to the Roman emperor Constantine the Great (r. 306–337). He was the founder of the royal Chosroid dynasty. According to the early Medieval Georgian annals and hagiography, Mirian was the first Christian king of Iberia, converted through the ministry of Nino, a Cappadocian female missionary. Following the Christianization of Iberia, he is credited with having established Christianity as his kingdom's state religion and is regarded by the Georgian Orthodox Church as a saint and was canonized as Saint Equal to the Apostles King Mirian (Georgian: წმინდა მოციქულთასწორი მეფე მირიანი). Traditional chronology, in line with Prince Vakhushti's Description of the Kingdom of Georgia, assigns to Mirian's reign—taken to have lasted for 77 years—the dates 268–345, which Professor Cyril Toumanoff changed to 284–361. He was also known to the contemporary Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus and the medieval Armenian chronicles. "Mirian" is the Georgian form of the Iranian name of Mihrān. The name is transliterated in Greek as Mithranes. According to the Life of Vakhtang, his name was also associated with Mirdat, meaning "given by Mithra", the name of the ancient Iranian sun god. His name is rendered as Meribanes by the Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus (XXI, 6, 8). The regnal numbers as in Mirian III are modern and were not used by the medieval Georgian authors. Since two kings preceded him with that name, Mirian has been assigned the ordinal "III" in Georgian historiography. Mirian was a member of the House of Mihran, one of the Seven Great Houses of Iran. The family, based at Ray in northern Iran, traced its ancestry back to the ruling Arsacid Empire, the predecessors of the Sasanian Empire. Mirian himself was also born in Iran and was originally a Zoroastrian.