Leonid

Leonid (in the world Longinoz Okropiridze, son of Solomon; born 15 February 1861, Disevi (now Eredvi Municipality) — died 24 [O.S. 11] June 1921) was a Georgian churchman and public figure, Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia and Archbishop of Mtskheta and Tbilisi from 1919 to 1921. He was the nephew of Bishop Alexander (Okropiridze). He was a renowned preacher, and his sermons have been published. He is buried in the Sioni Cathedral in Tbilisi.

He was born on 15/28 February 1861 in the village of Disevi in the Gori district. He received his first schooling at the Tbilisi Theological School, and then studied at the seminaries of Tbilisi and Stavropol. In 1884, on the advice of his uncle, the holy Bishop Alexander, he went on to the Kiev Theological Academy.

In 1888 he graduated from the Kiev Theological Academy. From 1888 to 1897 he was engaged in missionary work. He was inspector of the schools of the Society for the Restoration of Orthodox Christianity in the Caucasus and a member of the council of the diocesan schools of Georgia; supervisor of the monasteries of Zedazeni, Khirsa and St John the Baptist; chairman of the committee for the correction of the Georgian Bible, and a member of the Georgian-Imeretian Synodal Office. He fought actively for the restoration of the autocephaly (independence) of the Georgian Orthodox Apostolic Church. From 1898 to 1918 he was bishop of Gori, of Imereti and of Guria-Samegrelo, and Metropolitan of Tbilisi.

From 12 March to 17 September 1917 he was provisional administrator of the Georgian Church. In September 1917, at the First Council of the Georgian Church, he stood for election as Catholicos-Patriarch, but lost to Kyrion II by twelve votes. After the death of Kyrion II, in 1920, the Second Council of the Georgian Church confirmed him as Catholicos-Patriarch of Georgia without an election. In 1921, during the Soviet occupation, despite the appeals of Noe Zhordania and Ekvtime Takaishvili, Leonid refused to take the treasury of Tbilisi's Sioni and Mtskheta's Svetitskhoveli into emigration, and had Bishop Nazar hide it in Kutaisi.

He died of cholera on Wednesday, 11 July 1921, at 5.30 in the afternoon, in the patriarchal residence in Tbilisi. According to some accounts, the illness came from drinking the water of the Mtkvari.