country_of_citizenship eustathius of mtskheta
The Muslim conquest of Persia , also known as the ___MASK90___ conquest of ___MASK47___ , led to the end of the Sasanian Empire in 651 and the eventual decline of the Zoroastrian religion in ___MASK47___ . Eustathius or Eustace of Mtskheta ( Evstat ' i Mtskhet ' eli ; Georgian :   ) ( died c . 550 ) is an Orthodox Christian saint , executed for his apostasy from Zoroastrianism by the Persian military authorities in ___MASK11___ . His story is related in the anonymous 6th - century Georgian hagiographic novel The Passion of Eustathius of Mtskheta . One of the earliest extant works of the Georgian literature , The Passion of Eustathius of Mtskheta (       ) was written by an anonymous author later in the 6th century , within thirty years of Eustathius ' reported death . The morphology of the work as well as some theological phrases also supports this dating , although the earliest surviving manuscript dates from c . 1000 ( Georgian National Center of Manuscripts , MSS H - 341 ) . The text is also interesting for the first Georgian formulation of the Ten Commandments , an account of the life of Jesus which recalls Tatian ' s Diatessaron ( a Gospel harmony of the 2nd century ) , and traces of influence of the 2nd century Apology of Aristides . The Passion was first published by Mikhail Sabinin in 1882 . Eustathius is reported by the hagiographer to have been a Persian cobbler originally called Gvirobandak , son of a Zoroastrian priest ( magi ) , from Ganzak . Having converted to Christianity , he flees persecution to ___MASK11___ ( Iberia ) , then under the Persian military authority , in 541 . He settles at the Christian town of Mtskheta and marries a Christian woman . The local Persian cobblers '' guild denounces Eustathius to the marzban Arvand Gushnasp with seven other converts to be judged . Arvand punishes the apostates by having their noses pierced and casts them in prison under sentence of death . Six months later , Arvand releases them , however , as a farewell gesture to the local people , when recalled from ___MASK11___ by the king Khosrau I . Four years later , under the new marzban Bezhan Buzmir , Eustathius is rearrested , but reaffirms his faith before the court in a speech of some 3 , 000 words that makes up nearly half the Passion . Eventually , the marzban , albeit reluctant , has him beheaded in Tbilisi . The remains of Eustathius were taken to Mtskheta and buried at its principal church . Mtskheta - Mtianeti ( Georgian :  -  ) is a region ( Mkhare ) in eastern ___MASK11___ comprising the town of Mtskheta , which serves as a regional capital , together with its district and the adjoining mountainous areas . The western part is controlled by the breakaway Republic of South Ossetia since 1992 and the independence of ___MASK11___ . The region comprises five municipalities : Yazd , formerly also known as Yezd , is the capital of Yazd Province , ___MASK47___ . The city is located southeast of Esfahan . At the 2011 census , the population was 1 , 074 , 428 in 270  575 families . ___MASK47___ (, also , ; ' ), also known as Persia , officially the Islamic Republic of ___MASK47___ (' ), is a sovereign state in Western Asia . It is bordered to the northwest by Armenia , the " de facto " Nagorno - Karabakh Republic , and Azerbaijan ; to the north by the Caspian Sea ; to the northeast by Turkmenistan ; to the east by Afghanistan and Pakistan ; to the south by the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman ; and to the west by Turkey and Iraq . Comprising a land area of , it is the second - largest country in the Middle East and the 18th - largest in the world . With 82 . 8 million inhabitants , ___MASK47___ is the world ' s 17th - most - populous country . It is the only country with both a Caspian Sea and an Indian Ocean coastline . The country ' s central location in Eurasia and Western Asia , and its proximity to the Strait of Hormuz , make it of great geostrategic importance . Tehran is the country ' s capital and largest city , as well as its leading economic center . ___MASK3___ , officially the Republic of ___MASK3___ (" Bhrat Gaarjya "), is a country in South Asia . It is the seventh - largest country by area , the second - most populous country ( with over 1 . 2 billion people ), and the most populous democracy in the world . It is bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south , the Arabian Sea on the southwest , and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast . It shares land borders with ___MASK24___ to the west ; ___MASK10___ , Nepal , and Bhutan to the northeast ; and Myanmar ( Burma ) and Bangladesh to the east . In the Indian Ocean , ___MASK3___ is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives . ___MASK3___ ' s Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand and Indonesia . Its capital is New Delhi ; other metropolises include Mumbai , Kolkata , Chennai , Bangalore , Hyderabad and Ahmedabad . Zoroaster ( or , from Greek " Zroastrs " from " Zartosht "), also known as Zarathustra (" Zarauštra "), Zarathushtra Spitama or Ashu Zarathushtra , was the prophet of Ancient ___MASK47___ , whose transformation of his inherited religion , Zoroastrianism , inaugurated a movement that eventually became the dominant religion in Ancient Persia . He was a native speaker of Old Avestan and lived in the eastern part of the Iranian Plateau , but his exact birthplace is uncertain . Heaven , the heavens or seven heavens , is common religious , cosmological , or transcendent place where beings such as gods , angels , jinn , saints , or venerated ancestors are said to originate , be enthroned , or to live . According to the beliefs of some religions , heavenly beings can descend to ___MASK15___ or incarnate , and earthly beings can ascend to Heaven in the afterlife , or in exceptional cases enter Heaven alive . A diaspora ( from Greek  , " scattering , dispersion ") is a scattered population whose origin lies within a smaller geographic locale . Diaspora can also refer to the movement of the population from its original homeland . Diaspora has come to refer particularly to historical mass dispersions of an involuntary nature , such as the expulsion of Jews from ___MASK40___ , the fleeing of Greeks after the fall of Constantinople , the African Trans - Atlantic slave trade , the southern Chinese or Hindus of South Asia during the coolie trade , the Irish during and after the Irish Famine , the displacement of Palestinians in the 20th century , the exile and deportation of Circassians , and the emigration of Anglo - Saxon warriors and their families after the Norman Conquest of ___MASK26___ , many of whom found employment in Constantinople and bolstered the elite bodyguard of the emperor , the Varangian Guard . Zoroastrianism , or more natively Mazdayasna , is one of the world ' s oldest extant religions , " combining a cosmogonic dualism and eschatological monotheism in a manner unique [...] among the major religions of the world ". Ascribed to the teachings of the Iranian prophet Zoroaster ( or Zarathustra ), it exalts a deity of wisdom , Ahura Mazda (" Wise Lord "), as its Supreme Being . Major features of Zoroastrianism , such as messianism , heaven and hell , and free will have allegedly influenced other religious systems , including Second Temple Judaism , Gnosticism , Christianity , and Islam . With possible roots dating back to the second millennium BCE , Zoroastrianism enters recorded history in the 5th - century BCE , and along with a Mithraic Median prototype and a Zurvanist Sassanid successor it served as the state religion of the pre - Islamic Iranian empires from around 600 BCE to 650 CE . Zoroastrianism was suppressed from the 7th century onwards following the Muslim conquest of Persia of 633 - 654 . Recent estimates place the current number of Zoroastrians at around 2 . 6 million , with most living in ___MASK3___ and in ___MASK47___ . Besides the Zoroastrian diaspora , the older Mithraic faith Yazdânism is still practised amongst Kurds . A saint , also historically known as a hallow , is a term used for a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of holiness or likeness to God . Depending on the context and denomination , the term also retains its original Christian meaning , as any believer who is " in Christ " and in whom Christ dwells , whether in Heaven or on ___MASK15___ . In Anglican , Roman Catholic , Eastern Orthodox , Lutheran , and Oriental Orthodox doctrine , all of their faithful deceased in Heaven are considered to be saints , but some are considered worthy of greater honor or emulation ; official ecclesiastical recognition , and consequently veneration , is given to some saints through the process of canonization in the Catholic Church or glorification in the Eastern Orthodox Church . Mtskheta is a city in Mtskheta - Mtianeti province of ___MASK11___ . One of the oldest cities of ___MASK11___ , it is located approximately north of Tbilisi at the confluence of the Aragvi river . Tbilisi , commonly known by its former name Tiflis , and often mispronounced as " Tiblisi ", is the capital and the largest city of ___MASK11___ , lying on the banks of the Kura River with a population of roughly 1 . 5 million inhabitants . Founded in the 5th century by the monarch of ___MASK11___ ' s ancient precursor the Kingdom of Iberia , Tbilisi has since served , with intermissions , as the capital of various Georgian kingdoms and republics . Under Russian rule , from 1801 to 1917 Tiflis was the seat of the Imperial Viceroy governing both sides of the entire Caucasus . Hell , in many mythological , folklore and religious traditions , is a place of torment and punishment in an afterlife . It is viewed by most Abrahamic traditions as punishment . Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as eternal destinations . Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations . Typically these traditions locate hell in another dimension or under the ___MASK15___ ' s surface and often include entrances to Hell from the land of the living . Other afterlife destinations include Heaven , Purgatory , Paradise , and Limbo . The Kurds (  ) also the Kurdish people are an ethnic group in the Middle East , mostly inhabiting a contiguous area spanning adjacent parts of eastern and southeastern ___MASK17___ ( Northern Kurdistan ), western ___MASK47___ ( Eastern or Iranian Kurdistan ), northern Iraq ( Southern or Iraqi Kurdistan ), and northern Syria ( Western Kurdistan or Rojava ). The Kurds are culturally and linguistically closely related to the Iranian peoples and , as a result , are often themselves classified as an Iranian people .