Ioane (Maisuradze) of Betania

Ioane (Maisuradze) was a Georgian archimandrite of the Betania Monastery who preserved the monastic and liturgical life of his community through the Soviet persecution of the twentieth century. He is venerated as a confessor and is commemorated on September 8. He laboured at Betania alongside Father Giorgi-Ioane (Mkheidze), with whom he was so closely associated that the tradition describes the two as 'one soul in two bodies'; the two were glorified together by the Georgian Orthodox Church in 2003.

Born around 1882 in Tskhinvali, in the region of Samachablo, into a peasant family, he was given the baptismal name Vasil (Basil). While still a youth he assisted Father Spiridon (Ketiladze) in the restoration of Betania Monastery between 1894 and 1896. In 1903 he travelled to Mount Athos and entered the Skete of Saint John the Theologian attached to the Iveron Monastery, where he was tonsured and received the name Ioane. He remained on Athos for about seventeen years before returning to Georgia around 1920 to 1921 amid worsening conditions.

Back in Georgia he settled at the Armazi Monastery near Mtskheta. According to the accounts, armed Chekists broke into the monastery, led him and another monk away, and shot them; left for dead, he survived and was brought to the Samtavri Monastery to recover. He was afterward appointed abbot of Betania, the monastery he had helped to restore in his youth, and there he spent the remainder of his life. He reposed in 1957 at the age of seventy-five and was buried at Betania.