Nicholas was born as a younger son of King Levan of Kakheti either of his first marriage to the
Gurian princess
Tinatin or his second marriage to a daughter of the
shamkhal of Tarku. Nicholas was, thus, a younger brother or half-brother of
Alexander II, who won the bloody competition for the throne of Kakheti after Levan's death in 1574. Nicholas corresponded with
Patriarch Job of Moscow, who died in 1607, and exchanged gifts with him. He also donated a leather-bound illuminated manuscript of the Gospels, copied in 1049, to the
Metekhi church in
Tbilisi. The 18th-century author
Timote Gabashvili reports that there was an icon of Catholicos Nicholas in the
refectory at the
Iviron monastery on
Mount Athos. Gabashvili also conjectured that another refectory, built at the Iviron at the behest of the Georgian prince
Ashotan of Mukhrani, might have been Nicholas's death place. == References ==