The day of the restoration of the autocephaly of the Apostolic Church of Georgia (1917)
St Andrew and St Simon the Canaanite (commemorated 10 May) preached the law of Christ in Didachara, in southern Georgia, and afterwards along the whole coast of the Black Sea, from south to north. St Simon the Canaanite remained in Abkhazia and suffered martyrdom there (he is buried at Anakopia). At various times Apostles were in Kartli: St Matthias (commemorated 9 August) and St Bartholomew (commemorated 11 June). 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, at Bichvinta in particular: the bishop of Bichvinta attended the First Ecumenical Council.
At the beginning of the fourth century, when Christianity was proclaimed the state religion in Rome, in the reign of Sts Mirian and Nana, Equal to the Apostles (commemorated 1 October), St Nino (commemorated 14 January and 19 May) came to preach the word of God. Then, at King Mirian's request, St 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 baptized the Georgians. So the foundation of the Church of Georgia was laid. John's election as Patriarch of Antioch brought it about that 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 Samuel archbishop. He also established twelve bishoprics. “From here began the rule of the Catholicoi,” writes the author of The Conversion of Kartli. So from Vakhtang's time the Church of Kartli had its own church council and the consecrating and deposing of bishops; it governed itself. The Church became independent.
In the time of the emperor Constantine Copronymus and the Patriarch Theophylact of Antioch, Georgian clergy came from Kartli to Antioch and told the patriarch of 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 the Patriarch Anastasius of Antioch no Catholicos of Kartli had been consecrated. The local council of the Church of Antioch decided that in return the Church of Kartli should receive the holy chrism from Antioch and pay a thousand drachmas for it. Besides this, the Patriarch of Antioch was to be commemorated in the first place in the services of the Church of Kartli.
A little later the Apostolic Church of Georgia received the right to consecrate the holy chrism, through the labours of the venerable father Ephrem Matsqvereli (commemorated 17 April). “By Christ's command, Ephrem established the blessing of the chrism in Kartli,” writes Giorgi Merchule in The Life of Gregory of Khandzta (according to the research and conjecture of Archbishop Anania Japaridze, the Georgian Church was boiling and blessing the chrism in Mtskheta in the fourth century, and only the aromatic substances of the “holy chrism” were brought from Antioch).
The autocephaly and apostolic dignity of the Church of Georgia were defended at various times by God-wise Georgian fathers. In the eleventh century the Church of Antioch raised sharply the question of the independence of the much-afflicted Church of Iberia. After a quarrel on Mount Athos, the fathers of the monastery of St Symeon slandered to the Patriarch Theodosius of Antioch the Georgian fathers labouring in the Iviron monastery: “We do not know what their faith is.” St George the Hagiorite (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 never denied Him, and never has our nation inclined to heresy… It is fitting that the one called should submit to the one who called; for it is right that Peter should submit to him who called him, his brother Andrew, and that you should submit to us” (the Church of Antioch was founded by the holy Apostle Peter).
Through centuries of struggle with the Muslim world the Church of Georgia taught, raised and fed the Georgian people in spirit.
In Article 8 of the Treaty of Georgievsk of 1783 the legal standing of the autocephalous Church of Georgia is set out vaguely: “And for the governance of the Church of Georgia and the correspondence proper with the Russian Synod, another article will be written.”
In 1801 the emperor Alexander I signed a manifesto by which Georgia's statehood of many centuries ceased to exist, and a once great country was joined to the Russian Empire as two governorates.
After the act of 1801 the chief administrator of Georgia interfered roughly 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 subordinate it to the Russian Synod.
On 10 June 1811 Alexander I writes 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 governance of the Most Holy Governing Synod. The presence of a Catholicos in Georgia would be incompatible with the new governance… We relieve you of the administration of the affairs of the Church of Georgia, while you keep your membership of the Most Holy Synod and the title of Catholicos”… So the autocephaly of the Church of Georgia was abolished, and Anton II was exiled to Russia. In some ten years Georgia lost both its king and its patriarch. Having lost its political freedom, Georgia lost its spiritual independence too.
Hard years began in the history of the Georgian Church. The Church of Georgia was governed by the Russian Synod through an exarch. In 1811–1817 this office was held by Varlaam Eristavi. After him every exarch was Russian. Ignorance of the Georgian language and traditions, of the Georgian saints and feasts, raised an insurmountable barrier between the Georgian Orthodox and the leaders of the Church; to this were added the doings of certain unworthy exarchs, who plundered the rarest works of Georgian goldsmithing and cloisonné enamel that had survived the enemy invasions and took them to Russia. Church sees were done away with. Twenty-four eparchies, whose bishops with their flocks had borne every hardship and burden and even given their lives for their homeland, were reduced by the exarchate to five. The Georgian services and the Georgian polyphonic chants were replaced by Russian. In a mere couple of years the Church of Georgia lost what it had built up and gathered with care over centuries. All this aroused the anger and bitterness of the people. The process was hastened by the openly anti-Georgian actions of the exarchs — and this although God-inspired Russian fathers warned the forces hostile to Georgia to treat with honour and reverence the land that was the lot of the Mother of God and was converted by the Apostles.
Before the emperor Nicholas I came to Georgia, the Exarch Evgeny, on the pretext of “sanitary order”, had the unique frescoes of Svetitskhoveli, Alaverdi and Ertatsminda whitewashed. Pavel Lebedev, together with the rector of the seminary, Chudetsky, despoiled the icon of the Mother of God of Khakhuli and carried off icons of gold and silver and church vessels. Because of the murder of Chudetsky the Exarch cursed the Georgian nation from the ambo of the Sioni Cathedral. Dimitri Kipiani publicly rebuked the Exarch and told him that he had no right to remain the spiritual father of a nation he had anathematised. For this rebuke the aged patriot was exiled to Stavropol, and was murdered on the day before his release.
At the beginning of the twentieth century the leaders of the Georgian 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 St Ilia the Righteous (Chavchavadze, commemorated 20 June), went to the viceroy Vorontsov-Dashkov and formally demanded that the question of the autocephaly of the Church of Georgia be considered. The tsarist government set up a session at which papers were given by Bishops Kyrion and Leonid and by Professors Al. Tsagareli, Al. Khakhanashvili and Niko Marr. The subjects of Kyrion's papers were: 1) the Georgian church question; 2) what moves the Georgians to strive for the restoration of their Church's autocephaly; 3) in what year Iveria was granted autocephaly; 4) the national principle in the Church. The Georgians showed that bondage in the Church is worse than any other bondage, 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.
Bishops and scholars who fought for the autocephaly of the Church of Georgia — K. Tsintsadze, N. Durnovo, T. Zhordania — published monographs arguing 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 to this effect: 1) from now, from 12 March, the autocephaly of the Church of Georgia continues; 2) until a Catholicos is elected, Bishop Leonid of Guria-Odishi is appointed to govern the Church for the time being; 3) the government of the Church of Georgia is entrusted to an executive committee made up of both clergy and laymen.
In September of that year, after an enforced interval of 106 years, the Georgian Church once more elected a Catholicos-Patriarch. This honour and this cross fell to Kyrion, an untiring fighter for autocephaly, who was later treacherously murdered in the monastery of Martkopi.
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 fight to prove 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 acknowledged and recognised 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 presented to Ilia II, Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia, the charters recognising and bestowing the patriarchal title of the head of the Most Holy Orthodox Church of Georgia.
This was the greatest 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.
