NINA

NINA, Apostle to Georgia. In the most ancient account of Georgia’s conversion to Christianity, the Latin writer, Rufinus of Aquileia at the close of the fourth century, mentions an anonymous slave girl who effected the conversion of the Georgian king, Mirian, and his nation. “Nina” acquires her name later, in an eighth-century “Life,” perhaps deriving it from the Latin word for a female monastic, nonna. In any case, it was to a woman, a Christian and a missionary, that the Georgians ascribe their Baptism into the Orthodox Church.