"[2] There is no reliable information on Petritsi's biography except for indirect indications in his own works and a few details provided by 18th-century Georgian scholarship.

He is reported to have been born into an aristocratic family from the province of Samtskhe, and educated at Constantinople under the tutelage of Michael Psellos and John Italus.

His broad philosophic outlook brought him into collision with the Georgian patristic orthodoxy, until the king David IV of Georgia eventually established him at Gelati Academy.

He translated Aristotle, Proclus, Nemesius, Ammonius Hermiae, components of the Bible, hagiography, and some other pieces.

Both in his philosophy and his literary style, Petritsi had a long lasting influence on Georgian philosophic thought and literature, which became more prominent in the 18th century under the reformist scholar Catholicos Anton I.