The Indian site where DNA tests confirmed the story of Georgian saint killed 400 years ago
Bones at Goa’s Church of St Augustine were recently found to belong to a queen Georgians consider a saint, believed to have died in 1624
The Church of St Augustine, which forms part of the Churches and Convents of Goa Unesco World Heritage site in Old Goa, in western India, is a major tourist attraction with an interesting history.
The religious monument is linked to Ketevan the Martyr, a queen consort of the Kingdom of Kakheti – a monarchy formed in eastern Georgia in the late medieval period – who is considered a saint in the Georgian Orthodox Church.
Her story dates back to the 1600s, with September 13 marking the 400th anniversary of her death.
During the Middle Ages, the Kingdom of Kakheti was sandwiched between two Islamic empires: the Ottoman Empire (ruled from modern-day Turkey) and the Safavid Empire (based in what is today Iran). In 1613 the Safavid shah Abbas the Great set out to conquer Kakheti.
King Teimuraz I of Kakheti gave his mother, Queen Ketevan, and his two sons to the shah as hostages to prevent war. But Abbas the Great reneged on the deal and began a bloody conquest, razing the Kakhetian royal palace and Georgian churches to the ground.
