Dimitri (Prince Abashidze), in Schema Antonius

In the world, Prince David Ilyich Abashidze was born in the ancestral estate of Vedzhini, Signakhsky Uyezd, Tiflis Province, on the Feast of the Protection of the Most Holy Theotokos, October 1, 1867. He hailed from one of the oldest princely families of Georgia – on his father's side from the princes Abashidze, and on his mother's side related to the princely family Bagrationi.

From childhood, he was trained in dancing, fencing, and horseback riding, and graduated with honors from the Faculty of Law of the Novorossiysk Imperial University in Odessa in 1891. In the same year, unexpectedly for his relatives, he entered the Kyiv Theological Academy. In his first year, on November 16, 1891, he was tonsured a monk with the name in honor of Saint Demetrius of Rostov. In 1896, he graduated from the academy with a degree of Candidate of Theology and was ordained a hieromonk.

On August 16, 1896, he was appointed a teacher of Sacred Scripture at the Tiflis Theological Seminary.

In 1897, he became an inspector of the Kutaisi Theological Seminary. The following year, he was transferred as an inspector to the Tiflis Theological Seminary, where Joseph Dzhugashvili, the future head of the USSR, was studying at the time. Subsequently, in the Tbilisi Museum named after Lenin, a seminary journal from 1898-1899 was kept for many years with an entry about Joseph Dzhugashvili signed by Hieromonk Dimitri: "He was reprimanded and placed in solitary confinement by the order of the rector for five hours."

On January 13, 1900, he was elevated to the rank of archimandrite and appointed rector of the Alexandrovsky Ardonsky Missionary Theological Seminary.

On April 23, 1902, he was consecrated as Bishop of Alaverdi and appointed an extra-member of the Georgian-Imeretian Synodal Office. The consecration took place in the military Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in the city of Tiflis, performed by the Exarch of Georgia, Alexius, and the bishops of Vladikavkaz, Vladimir, Guri-Mingrelia, Alexander, Sukhumi, Arsenius, Imeretia, Leonid, and Gori, Benjamin. Upon his consecration, the newly appointed bishop said: "The Lord imposes a terrible and responsible ministry upon me... My spirit is ready to be disturbed and frightened by the approaching evil times, the increase of iniquity, false faith, and unbelief... But I am not afraid of the increasing dishonor, for I am in the Lord... What is impossible for man is possible for God... Ascending the episcopal throne is approaching Golgotha. But Golgotha cannot frighten a Christian; we are born for it, for without Golgotha, there is no Resurrection..."

From November 4, 1903, he served as Bishop of Guri-Mingrelia.

From April 16, 1905, he was Bishop of Balta, Vicar of the Podolsk Diocese.

From January 20, 1906, he was Bishop of Turkestan and Tashkent.

Sensing the approach of revolutionary unrest, Bishop Dimitri did not justify the terrorist acts in Georgia of those years. A year after his consecration, he said in a sermon at a memorial service for the priest Father George Vasilov, killed by terrorists: "Every drop of spilled blood creates new martyrs for the Church, preparing its new members. Neither suffering nor torment are frightening for the Church or for Russia..."

From June 25, 1912, he served as Bishop Tavrichesky and of Simferopol.

In 1914, while holding episcopal office, he participated in World War I as a regular chaplain of the Black Sea Fleet. On May 6, 1915, he was elevated to the rank of archbishop and, at his request and with the Tsar's consent, was appointed as the acting ship chaplain on the battleship St. Panteleimon. During the war, he was often in battle. For his displayed bravery, he received a rare award - a panagia on a St. George's ribbon.

At the All-Russian Church Council of 1917-1918, Archbishop Dimitri played a prominent role in defending the patriarchate against its opponents, and his name was included in the first, "large" list of candidates for the patriarchal throne. After the fall of the Kremlin, defended by the cadets, the archbishop declared at the Council: "I would consider it a happiness and honor to fall together with the cadets..." During this period, Archbishop Dimitri did not follow other Georgian bishops and did not join the Georgian Church, which unilaterally declared its autocephaly restored.

He participated in the South-East Church Council in Stavropol from May 19-24, 1919, where the Temporary Supreme Church Administration of South-East Russia was established for territories occupied by General Denikin's Volunteer Army. According to some sources, in 1919, he briefly stayed abroad but soon returned. While most bishops of southern Russia began to leave for overseas from January 1920, Archbishop Dimitri stayed. General Wrangel wrote a letter to Archbishop Dimitri suggesting that he "find ways to establish the highest church authority in the coming days." Archbishop Dimitri arrived in Sevastopol on April 6 and headed the Temporary Supreme Church Administration in Crimea. On his initiative, "days of repentance" were declared in Crimea, to which he tried to involve the Red Army soldiers as well. Archbishop Dimitri addressed an impassioned message to the Orthodox Russian people, stating: "Not only out of weakness but also out of fatal delusion did our people sin before God, for they opened their ears to the false and pernicious teachings of the sons of darkness, turned away from God, and worshiped idols... Russian people, Orthodox! Show the power of repentance, magnify Holy Russia by deed, word, and thought, reject the temptations of the Antichrist..." But a nationwide repentance did not follow; to many, it seemed ridiculous, and soon in November 1920, the last white resistance was crushed.

Archbishop Dimitri was the only member of the Temporary Supreme Church Administration under Wrangel who did not emigrate after the White Army's departure. Mass repressions began in Crimea, thousands of people were killed, but Archbishop Dimitri survived.

In May 1921, Archbishop Dimitri settled in the Toplovsky Women's Monastery near Feodosia, which was already called a labor commune. Officially, he retired from church affairs and was released by the Patriarch, but in reality, he continued his activities. Archbishop Dimitri was arrested several times, tried by a tribunal where he was accused of sending a telegram to Kolchak, donating a thousand rubles to the Volunteer Army, and the messages of the Temporary Supreme Church Administration signed by him. However, Archbishop Dimitri was very popular in Crimea, and the authorities released him but ordered him to leave his former diocese.

After being ordered to leave Crimea, Archbishop Dimitri went to Kyiv and settled in the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra. According to the recollections of Professor Ivan Nikodimov: "Every day he conducted services in a priestly phelonion and omophorion. A profound elder, of small stature, he still bore traces of his former beauty. His black expressive eyes revealed in him, despite his large gray beard and hair as white as snow, a former dark-haired man."

In 1923, the archbishop was 55 years old but appeared to those around him as a venerable elder. Even then, he was revered in Kyiv as a great ascetic, prayerful and spirit-bearing elder, to whom Orthodox Christians from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Georgia came for spiritual advice. According to Archbishop Leonty of Chile: "He lived not for himself, but for God, for the Church, and for people. No Orthodox bishop, and even some of the Renovationists who later repented, passed by his humble dwelling without stopping for a spiritual conversation."

In 1928, after distributing his possessions, including his precious panagia, and taking a vow of silence for a time, the archbishop took the great schema with the name Antonius, in honor of St. Anthony of the Caves.

Early in the spring of 1933, Schema-Archbishop Antonius, his two cell attendants, Father Leonty (Filippovich), and several monks from the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra were arrested.

On March 13 of that year, Case No. 3651 was opened in the special section of the Lukyanovskaya prison "On the accusation of citizen Abashidze A.I. of committing a crime under Articles 54-10 and 54-11 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR." He was conditionally sentenced to 5 years in a concentration camp, but then released by the resolution of the OSO at the GPU Collegium of the Ukrainian SSR. After this, the authorities no longer troubled him.

After his release, Schema-Archbishop Antonius continued to conduct secret services and ordinations, as testified by Father Leonty (Filippovich), who was sent by Archbishop Antonius, his spiritual father, to Tbilisi in October 1930. At that time, according to him, there was not a single functioning church or priest performing Christian rites in Georgia. Father Leonty, who often carried out the assignments of his elder, recalled: "Everywhere I had many friends and admirers, both in cities and villages, thanks to my elder, Schema-Archbishop Antonius."

In October 1937, monks from the long-closed Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra were arrested, and the Exarch of Ukraine, Metropolitan of Kyiv Konstantin (Dyakov), was arrested and killed in Lukyanovskaya prison. One of his relatives saw the metropolitan in a dream, standing by a freshly made grave mound, saying, "Here lies my body." The cemetery watchman, whom she dared to approach, turned out to be the one who buried the metropolitan's remains. Schema-Archbishop Antonius secretly performed the funeral service over the grave of the holy martyr.

Nun Sergia (Klimenko) recalled a memory of the elder from the pre-war period when the archbishop lived on Klovskyi Descent, near the closed Lavra: "He was so wonderful, small, all silver-haired, with big 'eastern' eyes that looked so kindly and somehow youthfully."

Shortly after the invasion of the USSR, on September 19, 1941, German forces entered Kyiv, and soon the lower part of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra – the Near and Far Caves – was allowed to reopen as a monastery. Archbishop Antonius settled in the house of the former keeper of the Near Caves. Ivan Nikodimov writes, "In this house, a church destroyed during Soviet times was restored for the archbishop. Here, Schema-Archbishop Antonius served alone on holidays and Sundays, without other worshippers. Helping him in these services were his household members: several nuns who attended the house and his secretary, Hieromonk Dimitri... The Germans were very interested in the personality of the schema-archbishop, and a visit to Archbishop Antonius was invariably part of their tour of the Lavra."

In 1942, Schema-Archbishop Antonius ordained Theodosius (Bakhmetyev) as Bishop of Pinsk. This was possibly his last ordination.

As he felt his earthly end approaching, Archbishop Antonius loudly called upon St. Nicholas and all the saints for help in the journey ahead. He passed away on November 1, 1942, and was buried at the entrance to the Near Caves of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra.

The archbishop often said, "The episcopal authority is given to me not to punish, but to forgive." He had a lifelong love for the royal family, willingly and with deep sympathy recounting his meetings with them.

By the decision of the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church on June 14, 2011, he was canonized as a venerable local saint of the Kyiv diocese, with his commemoration on the day of his death, October 19.

On April 22, 2012, on Thomas Sunday, Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Ukraine Vladimir (Sabodan) led the service of glorification in the Lavra Church of Saints Anthony and Theodosius of the Caves.

Troparion, Third Tone

Glorious imitator of the venerable fathers of Pechersk, adornment of the city of Kiev and the land of Iberia, who hast united good deeds and virtues with episcopacy, and in cruel days, enduring persecutions, slanders, and other sorrows from the godless, showing the image of monastic life, our father Anthony (Dimitry), pray to Christ God to grant our land steadfastness in faith, victory to the warriors over the enemies, and salvation to our souls.

Kontakion, Fourth Tone

Hath come from a princely lineage, counted earthly glory as nothing, so adorned thee the Lord with spiritual glory and as thy own vineyard with virtues enriched thee. Now, dwelleth in the heavenly palaces, luminary father Dimitri (Antonius), pray for the salvation of our own souls.