Shalva was a Georgian military leader who was seriously wounded when Georgia was invaded by the Persian Shah Jalal ad-Din. When he recovered, they offered him many miracles if he would accept Islam. He refused. He repeated to them the words of Saint Ignatius of Antioch: “I do not seek any gain except to preserve the Christian faith in which I was created.”

While they were flogging him, he exulted, saying: “Rejoice, Shalva, for you have put off the old man and freed yourself from eternal damnation.” They threw him into prison, his bones broken. He died in June 1227.

As for his companions, whom Shah Jalal al-Din wanted, after the fall of Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, to spit on the icon of Christ in order for him to give them their lives, they refused and were killed. It is said that their number was ten thousand.

The church commemorates him on June 17.