Developments of the Georgian Church, 20 Years On

Op-Ed

The closer we get to December 25, the more we ponder the question of how things will develop within the Georgian Church. 40 years ago, in the Svetitskhoveli Cathedral, His Holiness Ilia II was elected as the Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia. Rumors suggest that now, 40 years later, the Patriarch will resign and hand his power to Metropolitan Shio Mujiri. Experts think that if this doesn’t happen, then appointing Shio as his locum tenens will lose all sense. However, only one thing is for sure today, which is that the era that started on December 25, 1977 is coming to an end. But as they like to say here, only God knows what will happen.

What we’ve seen so far is that when Patriarch Ilia II publicly named Shio as his locum tenens during the St George liturgy on November 23, the Holy Synod quickly started the process of regrouping. One member of the high-ranking church leaders travelled to Washington, others visited Moscow, while the rest decided to stay in their homeland. These moves might help us predict what could happen on December 25th, if the Patriarch resigns. The statute adopted in 1945 suggests that Metropolitan Shio would have to summon a meeting of the Georgian Church, where they will cast a secret ballot and the new Patriarch will be appointed. Prior to the meeting, the locum tenens also calls the meeting of the Holy Synod to select three possible patriarchal candidates, who will be presented at the upcoming church meeting. For now, it is hard to predict whether Metropolitan Shio will be one of the candidates, even though he obviously owns the starting privilege against all other alleged candidates. For sure, he will have at least one guaranteed vote from the Patriarch himself during the secret vote; plus, he has other obvious advantages too. Considering the authority of Patriarch Ilia II, it is almost unimaginable to think that any church official would oppose his idea, while he is still alive. And here, we are not talking about just one or two church officials, not even a few of them, but a total of 24 priests of the Holy Synod.

If this happens though and priests vote for another candidate, it will surely be perceived by the parish as neglect of the Patriarch’s will, thus disrespect towards 40 years of his work.

This would completely destruct the already shattered reputation and power of the church, and especially that of the candidate who could allegedly “defeat” the Metropolitan Shio.

The moment Patriarch named Shio as his locum tenens, some of the Synod members flew to the USA. This group mainly consisted of those priests, who some 4 years ago, attacked LGBTQ protestors with chairs. Also, these are the people who have been blaming the US and the West in infringing on Georgian traditions. Apparently, the Patriarch’s decision has changed many things. Today, these priests started making completely different statements. For example, Bishop Iakob, who is considered as one of the candidates for the post of the Patriarch, said that during his visit to America he saw things in a completely new light. “The USA is a country that has not betrayed us. For years, Russia has been openly leading a war against us. Therefore, the support from America is very important for us, they also saw that we, the Church, are not planning to compromise with our rivals. Nothing is worth the sale of freedom,” said the Bishop to the press. The same message was communicated by the rest of the priests, when they answered questions about the USA and Georgia relations.

Shio wasn’t among the priests who travelled to Moscow. Apparently, he did not want this to be added to the already existing pro-Russian accusations against him. After the Patriarch named Metropolitan Shio as his locum tenens, people started talking about his tight connections with the Russian Church. His most obvious weakness is his friend Levan Vasadze, who is considered as the main sponsor and ideologist of the anti-Western movement in the country. As we don’t know whether Metropolitan Shio regards his friend’s pro-Russianist views as a sin, doubts and accusations continue.

Elites in all countries and nations have one valuable trait, which is compromise. The last 25 years have shown that local secular and political elites don’t have this quality. But let’s hope that in that very decisive moment, at least our religious elites will prove this skill, and won’t push their country off the cliff just like their secular brothers did.

Zaza Jgarkava