The Patriarchate of Georgia

The Georgian Orthodox Church is one of the oldest Christian Churches. As early as the beginning of the 4th century, there were Christian communities on the Georgian Black Sea coast in Western Georgia, which was ruled by the Greeks. East Georgia, called Iberia by the Greeks, was under Persian rule. The Christianization of East Georgia took place primarily with the support of the Armenian Church. According to legend, the Georgian King Mirian declared Christianity as the state religion in Iberia around 337 after St. Nino, a Christian woman from Cappadocia, cured his wife of an illness. Due to the reception of the resolutions of the Council of Chalcedon, the Georgian Church separated from the Armenian Church at the beginning of the 7th century and consequently came under greater Byzantine influence. Despite repeated changes of foreign rule, the Georgian Church was able to preserve its identity, primarily through monasticism. In the 18th century, Georgia increasingly came under Russian influence and was finally incorporated into the Russian Empire in 1801.

The Georgian Church regained its independence in the course of the reorganization of the state in 1917-21. After the relaxation of the restrictive Soviet religious policy during the Second World War, the Patriarchate of Moscow recognized the autocephaly of the Georgian Orthodox Church in 1943. However, it was only after the death of Stalin, who as a native Georgian himself had once been a student at the Tbilisi seminary, that the Georgian Orthodox Church was gradually able to reorganize itself and re-establish contact with other Christian churches.

A significant contribution to the renewal of church life in Georgia was made by Patriarch Ilia II, who has been in office since 1977 (to this day) and was also active in the World Council of Churches (WCC). In March 1990, the Ecumenical Patriarchate confirmed the autocephaly of the Georgian Orthodox Church. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the declaration of independence of the Republic of Georgia in 1991, the Orthodox Church in Georgia has increasingly regained its influence on society. This is also associated with a revival of monasticism in Georgia, which is, however, very critical of ecumenical contacts, which led to the Georgian Orthodox Church's withdrawal from the WCC in May 1997.