John Zosimus

Biographical details on Ioane-Zosime are scarce beyond the fact that he was one of the numerous expatriate Georgian clerics active at the monastery of Mar Saba in Palestine.

In the early 970s he moved to Mount Sinai, probably fleeing the armies of the Fatimid Caliphate.

Of the three surviving manuscripts of Ioane-Zosime's Mar-Saba period, two – hymn collections from 949 and 954 – are the most important.

One of his anthologies of chants ends with a "testament," a poem written as an elaborate acrostic hymn in which reading the first and last letter of each strophe gives the name of St.

[1] Ioane-Zosime's best known hymn is "Praise and Exaltation of the Georgian Language" (Georgian: ქებაჲ და დიდებაჲ ქართულისა ენისაჲ), a mystic poem making heavy use of numerological symbolism and biblical allusions.