[2] Mirian entered the Russian military service, while Anton, in the presence of the empress Catherine and her suite, was consecrated as a metropolitan bishop at a ceremony held at the church of Tsarskoye Selo in 1787.

On this occasion, Catherine presented him the richly adorned panagia, a medallion depicting the Virgin Mary, which would be appropriated by the Russian Most Holy Synod upon Anton II's death in 1827.

[4] After the Russian Empire annexed Georgia in 1801 and began deporting the Georgian royal family to Russia proper, Anton came under increasing pressure from the Imperial officials.

Anton convened a church court which ruled that Arsen violated the canon by his misconduct and corruption and that he should be stripped of his office and retire to a remote convent, but the defiant bishop denied all charges and vehemently refused to leave his diocese, pending the decision in the imperial capital.

To lessen the impact of the loss of independence, the Russian government appointed as the first exarch a Georgian, Varlaam Eristavi, who was relieved of his duties in 1817 due to his delays in implementing new policies.

From that year until the restoration of Georgian autocephalous church in 1917, all subsequent exarchs of Georgia were to be ethnic Russians appointed from St.

[8][9][10] Discharged from the government of spiritual matters in Georgia and prohibited from returning to his homeland, Anton was decorated with the Order of St. Andrew and offered a pension of 2,675 silver roubles.

He returned to St. Petersburg in 1819, but chose in 1820 to move to the estate of his relative, Prince Georgy Gruzinsky, a descendant of Vakhtang VI of Kartli, in Lyskovo.

[11] In 1824, Anton retired to a monastery in Nizhny Novgorod, where he died in 1827, bequeathing his property to his sisterly nephew and faithful companion, Prince Evstati Tsitsishvili.