Baring-Gould’s sources: Roman Martyrology. Authorities: — Ruffinus, H. E. i. io, and Moses of Chorene. Ruffin us gives as his authority Bacurius, an Iberian petty prince, who joined the Romans, and was made captain of a military force in Palestine, and was afterwards honoured by Theodosius.] j|HE Iberians, occupying the country now called Georgia, east of the Euxine, were converted by the instrumentality of a slave girl, known in Georgian Church history by the name of Nonna or Nina, said to have been bom at Colastri in Cappadocia, daughter of one Zabulon, and the maternal niece of the bishop of Jerusalem, and to have devoted herself, encouraged by visions, to preaching the Gospel in Iberia, whither she proceeded after a missionary tour in Armenia. According to Western versions of her story, she was taken captive by the Iberians, and set an example among them of such continence, prayer, and self-devotion, that she impressed greatly the imaginations of the barbarians. The king's child, a babe, was ill, and Nana the queen sent it to several women reputed charmers, to bewitch it into health. It was taken among others to the maid; she laid the child on her horse-cloth bed, and said simply, “ Christ, who healed many, heal this babe also,” and the boy was restored to his mother whole. Not long after, the queen having fallen sick, sent for the slave woman, but she, being a person of modest and retiring manners, excused herself from going. Then the queen had herself conveyed to where the woman lived, and was laid on her bed, when she also recovered. The queen thanked her for her recovery, but the stranger replied, “This work is not mine, but Christ's, and He is the Son of God, who made the world.”

Mirian, the Iberian king, amazed at his wife’s restoration, wished to reward the woman, but she refused all his presents, saying that she desired but one thing, his conversion to Christ Next day the king was out hunting, when a thick fog came on, and he lost his way. In his distress he invoked his gods, but the fog remained as thick as ever. He then called on the captive’s God, and a wind sprang up and cleared away the mist He found his way, and returned rejoicing to his palace, and then sent for the captive woman, and required her to inform him who was the God that she adored. She accordingly instructed him in her faith, and her words were with power. His heart was touched and he believed. He convened the chiefs of his nation, told them the circumstances of the cure of his child and wife, and the dissipation of the fog, and declared his intention to introduce the Christian religion among his subjects. Instructed by the captive, he built a church. Again a miracle was wrought to confirm the faith of the Iberians, for a pillar at the prayer of the captive remained suspended in the air. When the church was built, an embassy was sent to Constantine the Great, requesting him to supply the Iberians with a bishop and regularly consecrated clergy. After witnessing the conversion of the country, and building churches in several parts of it, the saint withdrew to the mountain pass of Bodbe, ft * Dec xs.] •S. Eusebius [Eusebius of Caesarea (d. c. 339), the first historian of the Church].

in Kakheth, there to await her departure; and receiving the Holy Sacrament from the bishop of Iberia, gave her last injunctions and blessing to the king and queen, who had come to take leave of her, and peacefully fell asleep. Her relics [the bodily remains of a saint, or objects they used, kept with honor] still rest in the cathedral of Bodbe, or Beda, under a tomb built in her honour by Bakar, twenty-fifth king of Georgia, founder of the see and cathedral.1 In the Roman Martyrology the captive woman is called Christiana.