In 1759 he was ordained as a priest in the Armenian Apostolic Church. His wife Marmar died in 1768, leaving behind four children.

He served in various locations including Tbilisi and Haghpat Monastery. In 1795 he was killed in the monastery by the army of Agha Mohammed Khan. He is buried at the Cathedral of Saint George, Tbilisi.

Legacy

About 220 songs have been attributed to Sayat-Nova, although he may have written thousands more. Most of his surviving songs are in Azeri Turkish, the lingua franca of the Caucasus at that time, but he also wrote in Armenian, Georgian and Persian.

He wrote all his known poems using the Georgian alphabet. Sayat Nova was also fluent in Arabic. A number of his songs are sung to this day.

In Armenia, Sayat Nova is considered a great poet who made a considerable contribution to the Armenian poetry of his century. Although he lived his entire life in a deeply religious society, his poems are mostly secular and full of romantic expressionism.

Sayat-Nova is considered by many to be the greatest ashik (folk singer-songwriter) that ever lived in the Caucasus.

    * Composer Alexander Arutiunian wrote an opera called "Sayat Nova" about him.

    * The 1968 Armenian film Sayat Nova directed by Sergei Parajanov follows the poet's path from his childhood wool-dying days to his role as a courtier and finally his life as a monk. It was released in the United States under the title The Color of Pomegranates. It is not so much a biography of Sayat Nova but a series of tableaux vivants of Armenian costume, embroidery and religious rituals interspersed with scenes and verses from the poet's life.

    * A book on his life and work by Charles Dowsett was published in 1997 titled Sayat'-nova: An 18th-century Troubadour: a Biographical and Literary Study.

    * The first translations of the Armenian odes of Sayat Nova in European languages was in France by Elisabeth Mouradian and the French poet Serge Venturini in 2006; the book was dedicated to Sergei Parajanov.

    * There is a street and a music school named after him in Yerevan, Armenia, as well as an Armenian-American dance ensemble in the United States, a pond located in Mont Orford, Quebec, Canada. -- Wikipedia