Day of the Restoration of the Autocephaly of the Apostolic Church of Georgia (1917)
Day of the restoration of the autocephaly of the Apostolic Church of Georgia. The Church of Georgia is apostolic. According to tradition, after Pentecost, when the apostles cast lots and went out to preach in various lands, Georgia fell to the lot of the All-holy Theotokos; but at the Saviour’s appearing she blessed Saint Andrew the First-called (commemorated 30 November) to go to Iberia in her stead, and sent her icon with him.
Saint Andrew and Saint Simon the Canaanite (commemorated 10 May) preached the law of Christ in Didachara, in southern Georgia, and then along the whole coast of the Black Sea, from south to north. Saint Simon the Canaanite stayed in Abkhazia and there ended his life as a martyr (he is buried at Anakopia). At various times the apostles Saint Matthias (commemorated 9 August) and Saint Bartholomew (commemorated 11 June) were in Kartli. The holy relics of Matthias rest in Adjara, at Gonio.
At the beginning of the fourth century, before Christianity was proclaimed the state religion in eastern Georgia, a church hierarchy already existed in the west, and specifically at Bichvinta: the bishop of Bichvinta was present at the First Ecumenical Council.
At the beginning of the fourth century, when Christianity was proclaimed the state religion in Rome, in the reign of the holy Mirian and Nana, equal to the apostles (commemorated 1 October), Saint Nino (commemorated 14 January and 19 May) came to preach the word of God. Then, at King Mirian’s request, Saint Constantine the Great (commemorated 21 May) sent Bishop John (in 325 the First Council of Nicaea elected him Patriarch of Antioch) with two priests and three deacons, who baptised the Georgians. So the foundation of the Church of Georgia was laid. John’s election as Patriarch of Antioch was the reason why the council assigned the Church of Georgia too to the Patriarchate of Antioch.
On the initiative of the holy King Vakhtang Gorgasali, in 472 Peter was appointed Catholicos of Kartli and Samoel archbishop. He also established twelve bishoprics. “From here the catholicoi began to rule,” writes the author of “The Conversion of Kartli”. So from Vakhtang’s time the Church of Kartli had its own church council, empowered to manage its internal affairs, the consecration and deposition of bishops, by itself. The Church had become independent.
In the time of the Emperor Constantine Copronymus and of Theophylact, Patriarch of Antioch, Georgian clergy came from Kartli to Antioch and reported to the patriarch the plight of the Church of Iberia: for fear of the Saracens, travel between Kartli and Antioch had ceased, and so since the time of Anastasius, Patriarch of Antioch, no Catholicos of Kartli had been consecrated. The local council of the Church of Antioch decided to give the Church of Kartli the right to consecrate catholicoi; in return the Church of Kartli was to receive the chrism from Antioch and pay 1,000 drachmas for it. Moreover, in the services of the Church of Kartli the Patriarch of Antioch was to be commemorated in the first place.
A little later, through the labours of the Venerable Father Ephrem of Mtsqvereli (commemorated 17 April), the Apostolic Church of Georgia received the right to consecrate the chrism. “Ephrem, by command in Christ, established the consecration of the chrism in Kartli,” writes George Merchule in the “Life of Grigol of Khandzta” (according to the research and conjecture of Archbishop Anania Japaridze, the Georgian Church in the fourth century boiled and consecrated the chrism at Mtskheta, and only the aromatic substances of “the holy chrism” were brought from Antioch).
At various times the autocephaly and apostolic dignity of the Georgian Church were defended by God-wise Georgian fathers. In the eleventh century the Church of Antioch sharply raised the question of the independence of the much-suffering Church of Iberia. After a dispute that took place on Mount Athos, the fathers of the monastery of Saint Symeon denounced to Theodosius, Patriarch of Antioch, the Georgian fathers labouring in the Iveron monastery: “We know not what their faith is.” Saint George the Athonite (commemorated 27 June) not only proved the apostolic honour of the Church of Georgia, but showed its precedence over the Church of Antioch: “We have known one God, and have not denied Him, nor hath our nation ever inclined unto heresy. And thus it is meet, that he who was called should submit to him that called him; for it behoveth Peter’s [see] rather to submit to him that called him, his brother Andrew, and you to submit to us” (the Church of Antioch was founded by the holy Apostle Peter).
Through the centuries of struggle with the Muslim world, the Church of Georgia taught, reared and spiritually fed the Georgian people.
Article 8 of the Treaty of Georgievsk of 1783 set out vaguely the legal position of the autocephalous Church of Georgia: “And as for the government of the Church of Georgia and its correspondence, as is fitting, with the Russian Synod, a separate article shall be written on that.”
In 1801 the Emperor Alexander I signed a manifesto by which Georgia’s centuries-old statehood came to an end, and the once great country was joined to the Russian Empire in the form of two provinces.
After the act of 1801 the governor-general of Georgia interfered crudely in the affairs of the Church of Georgia. It soon became clear that the Russian government intended to abolish the autocephaly of the Church of Georgia and to subordinate it to the Russian Synod.
On 10 June 1811 Alexander I wrote to Anton II, Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia: “After the union of the Kingdom of Georgia with the Russian state, the Church of Georgia too was to be united under the government of the Most Holy Governing Synod. The presence of a catholicos in Georgia would be incompatible with the new government. We relieve you of the management of the affairs of the Church of Georgia, while you keep membership of the Most Holy Synod and the name of catholicos.” So the autocephaly of the Church of Georgia was abolished, and Anton II was exiled to Russia. In a mere ten years or so Georgia lost both its king and its patriarch. Having lost its political freedom, Georgia lost its spiritual independence as well.
Hard years began in the history of the Georgian Church. The Church of Georgia was directed by the Russian Synod through an exarch. In 1811–1817 this office was held by Varlaam Eristavi. After him all the exarchs were Russian. Their ignorance of the Georgian language and traditions, of the Georgian saints and feasts, created an insurmountable barrier between Georgian Orthodox believers and the Church’s leaders; to this was added the conduct of certain unworthy exarchs, who plundered the rarest examples of Georgian goldsmiths’ work and cloisonné enamel that had survived the enemy invasions and carried them off to Russia. Church sees were abolished. The twenty-four dioceses, whose hierarchs, together with their flocks, had borne every kind of want and hardship and even given their lives for the homeland, were cut down by the exarchate to five. The Georgian services and the polyphonic Georgian chants were replaced by Russian ones. In a mere couple of years the Church of Georgia lost what it had built and gathered with devotion over the centuries.
All this provoked the indignation and bitterness of the people. The process was hastened by the openly anti-Georgian activity of the exarchs, and this despite the fact that God-inspired Russian fathers warned the forces hostile to Georgia to treat with honour and reverence the land that is the lot of the Mother of God and was converted by the apostles.
Before the Emperor Nicholas I came to Georgia, the Exarch Evgeni, on the pretext of “sanitary order”, had the unique frescoes of Svetitskhoveli, Alaverdi and Ertatsmida whitewashed. Pavel Lebedev, together with Chudetsky, the rector of the seminary, stripped the Khakhuli icon of the Mother of God and carried off gold and silver icons and church objects. Over the murder of Chudetsky the exarch cursed the Georgian nation from the ambo of the Sioni cathedral; Dimitri Kipiani publicly denounced the exarch and told him that he had no right to remain the spiritual father of a nation he had anathematised. For this denunciation the aged patriot was exiled to Stavropol and killed on the eve of his release.
At the beginning of the twentieth century the leaders of Georgia’s national liberation movement, together with the Georgian clergy, began to work for the restoration of the autocephaly of the Church of Georgia. The leading part of Georgian society, headed by Saint Ilia the Righteous (Chavchavadze, commemorated 20 June), went to the viceroy Vorontsov-Dashkov and officially demanded that the question of the autocephaly of the Church of Georgia be considered. The tsar’s government appointed a session, at which reports were given by Bishops Kirion and Leonide and by Professors Al. Tsagareli, Al. Khakhanashvili and Niko Marr. The subjects of Kirion’s report were: 1) the Georgian church question; 2) what compels the Georgians to strive for the restoration of their Church’s autocephaly; 3) in what year autocephaly was granted to Iberia; 4) the national principle in the Church. The Georgians demonstrated that church slavery is worse than any slavery, and also that the abolition of the autocephaly of the Church of Georgia contradicted the canons of the Ecumenical Councils.
The majority at the session were Prof. Glebovsky, Archpriest Vostorgov, Butkevich and their followers, who rejected the just demands of Georgian society. The situation grew so tense that Niko Marr left the session in protest.
Hierarchs and scholars who fought for the autocephaly of the Church of Georgia, K. Tsintsadze, N. Durnovo and T. Zhordania, published monographs setting out the necessity of the self-government of the Church of Georgia.
On 12 (25) March 1917 the Georgian clergy, at an extraordinary assembly, adopted a document with the following content: 1) from now on, from 12 March, the autocephaly of the Church of Georgia continues; 2) temporarily, until a catholicos is elected, Bishop Leonide of Guria-Odishi is appointed to administer the Church; 3) the government of the Church of Georgia is entrusted to an executive committee, made up of both clergy and lay people.
In September of that same year the Georgian Church, after a forced interval of 106 years, again elected a catholicos-patriarch. This honour and this cross fell to Kirion, the untiring fighter for autocephaly, who was later treacherously murdered in the monastery of Martqopi.
By the providence of God the autocephaly of the Church of Georgia was recognised by all the Orthodox Churches of the world, but there was no written confirmation of this recognition, and for lack of it our holy forebears often had to struggle to establish the independence of the much-suffering Church of Georgia.
With God’s help and through the untiring labours of Ilia II, Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia, the Ecumenical Patriarchate in 1990 officially recognised and acknowledged the autocephaly of the Church of Georgia. On 4 March of that year, on the feast of the Triumph of Orthodoxy, His All-Holiness Demetrios, Archbishop of Constantinople and Ecumenical Patriarch, solemnly handed to Ilia II, Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia, the charters recognising and confirming the autocephaly of the Most Holy Orthodox Church of Georgia, and recognising and bestowing the patriarchal title of the head of the Most Holy Church of Georgia.
This was a very great victory and joy. All Georgia responded to the news; as His Holiness and Beatitude Ilia II, Catholicos-Patriarch of Georgia, remarked, it was the solemn and final recognition of the independence of the Georgian Church.
