Peter the Iberian (PIETRO IBERO) - Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. IX, p. 871

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

PIETRO IBERO. - Monophysite bishop of Maiuma, b. in Georgia in 409, d. at Jamnia on 1 Dec. 448.

In 421-22 P. was already at the Byzantine court. According to the biographers, he was the son of King Bosmario and was sent to Constantinople as a hostage; but both pieces of information are doubtful. He fled to Jerusalem, where he was received by s. Melania (d. in 439), who made him a monk (ca. 430). There he founded a monastery near the tower of David, later called the monastery of the Iberians. Persecuted as a steadfast Monophysite, he took refuge near Gaza and, after priestly ordination (446) and conse-

cration as bishop of Maiuma (453), went to Egypt, where he took part in the consecration of Timoteo Eluro (457). He returned to Palestine but, having Enotico (v.), hid in Phoenicia.

His influence upon the Monophysites was immense, as Giov. Rufo’s Pleriforie (PO, 8) demonstrate.

BIBL.: R. Raabe, Petrus der Iberer, Lipsia 1895; J. B. Chabot, Pierre l'Iberica, in Revue de l'Orient latin, 3 (1895), pp. 367-97; N. Marr, Vita di P. (in Georgian), in Praxual. Palest. Sbornik, 16 (1896), pp. 1-119; J. Bidez-L. Parmentier, The eccl. history of Evagrius, Londra 1898, pp. 62, 56, 132; W. Brooks, Historia eccl. Zachariae rhetori vulgo adscripta, versio, I, Lovano 1924, pp. 108-18, 160; II, pp. 2, 4; U. Monneret de Villard, Una chiesa di tipo georgiano nella necropoli tebana, in Copite studies in honor of W. E. Crum, Washington 1950, pp. 495-500.

Michele Tarchnišvili