Early life and education
Ilia was born on October 27, 1837, in the village of Qvareli (Kvareli) in the Kakheti region of Georgia, into the noble Chavchavadze family, a line that had been granted princely status in 1726. He lost both parents while still young — his mother in 1848 and his father in 1852 — and was raised in part by his aunt. He received his first instruction at home and began study under Archdeacon Nikoloz Sepashvili from about the age of eight.
After attending a classical gymnasium in Tbilisi, he enrolled in 1857 in the law faculty of Saint Petersburg University. There he devoted much of his energy to researching Georgian historical texts in the archives, and he left the university in his fourth year without taking a diploma in order to return to Georgia.
Writer and public figure
Returning home, Ilia became a prolific writer and publisher and a central figure among the reform-minded young Georgian intellectuals of his generation, sometimes called the Tergdaleulebi. He founded and edited periodicals, including those known as Sakartvelos Moambe and Iveria, through which he promoted the revival of the Georgian language and literature.
Beyond his writing, he built lasting institutions for the cultural life of his people. He founded the Society for the Propagation of Literacy among Georgians, established a depository for Georgian manuscripts and antiquities, and helped organize a Georgian land bank. He also advocated the autocephaly of the Georgian Orthodox Church, and in 1906 he was made a member of the Russian State Council.
Martyrdom and canonization
In the late summer of 1907, Ilia set out from Tbilisi toward his estate at Saguramo, travelling with his wife Olga (Guramishvili). Their carriage was stopped near Mtskheta, by the Tsitsamuri forest, where a band of militant social democrats lay in wait and shot him to death; sources record the date variously as August 28 or August 30, 1907. By one account his assassins were sentenced to death, and his widow Olga requested their pardon.
In 1987 the Holy Synod of the Georgian Orthodox Church, weighing his service to the Church and his people, decreed him worthy to be numbered among the saints and canonized him as Saint Ilia the Righteous. He is commemorated on July 20.
