Ambrose was born as Besarion Khelaia (ბესარიონ ხელაია) in Martvili, Georgia, then part of Imperial Russia. He graduated from the Tiflis Theological Seminary in 1885 and was ordained to the priesthood in Abkhazia where he served as a priest in Sukhumi, New Athos, and Lykhny, and also delivered courses in the Georgian language. Under the pseudonym of Amber, he published a series of articles denouncing the policy of Russification in Abkhazia and accusing local Russian officials of fomenting anti-Georgian sentiments among the Abkhaz people. In 1896, he enrolled into the Kazan Theological Academy, from which he graduated in 1900, having authored a thesis, “the Struggle of Christianity against Islam in Georgia.” Tonsured a Hieromonk in 1901, he returned in Georgia where he was made an archimandr