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Maandag 23 Juni 2008 22:18

De Bagration-stichting wil de samenwerking en uitwisseling bevorderen tussen Georgische en Nederlandse studenten, onderzoekers, promovendi en andere personen die zich bezig houden met onderwijs en wetenschap. Inmiddels loopt er een aantal uitwisselings- en samenwerkingsprojecten tussen wetenschappers van Nederland en Georgië. Geïnteresseerde personen in Nederland en Georgië kunnen bij ons terecht voor informatie en steun. Helaas heeft de stichting geen geld om projecten te financieren maar we willen graag helpen met het vinden van de juiste partners, zoeken naar financieringsmogelijkheden en opzetten van projecten. We stellen het op prijs dat mensen financieel bijdragen aan uitwisselingsprojecten. We zijn ook op zoek naar mensen die in het onderwijs en /of de wetenschap contacten hebben(gehad) met Georgië.

Mail of schrijf ons.

Hieronder een aantal handige links voor studenten en wetenschappers.

www.vu.nl of http://www.english.vu.nl/

www.uva.nl

www.studyinthenetherlands.net/common.asp

www.nuffic.net/common.asp

Witness Through Troubled Times

Tamar Grdzelidze, Theologist, Tbilisi-Geneva
Toespraak Georgiedag 2005

Is on its way to be published by Bennett and Bloom of London, publisher Nick Awde who has a special interest in the region.
Few words about the authors: Georgia church historians well known in the country; I am one of the three editors along with LV and MG.

When I was growing in soviet Georgia with a special interest to the history of our country, as we all did at that time, one of the painful experiences when viewing Georgia in the context of entire world/universe was to come across maps where it was not marked. As a younger student of Georgian history I would get cross and offended, later, however, I would even doubt whether the country existed the way it was presented to us by our parents and grandparents or it’s history was a part of the local folklore. Therefore my first comment about the publication in discussion is that it will have a set of maps from the ancient times until today.
The recent history of Georgia has revealed destructive sides of Nationalism but when we are to review some of the past of the country we cannot stick to the modern understanding of Nationalism in which negative attitude prevails. History reveals that strive for preserving the identity, independence against an oppressor could generate healthy attitude towards the national issue. In this context, however, of utmost importance are questions: What is the nature of an oppressor? How did it/he get to a door-step? What is the ultimate goal of his/its domination? It is against this kind of questions that a forthcoming book on the history of the Orthodox Church of Georgia in 19th and 20th centuries must be considered.

In 2001, soon after I started my present job at the World Council of Churches in Geneva as an Orthodox theologian, a well known Swiss pastor and theologian Lukas Vischer, by then retired for a number of years, who happened to be a chairman of the Swiss-Georgian Association, approached me with a proposal to fulfil a gap in the Georgian church history of the last two centuries. The proposal sounded interesting although ambitious as it intended to invite the Georgian church historians to write essays on the subject, then translate and edit for publication. Selecting people to write on the period under discussion in Georgia was not a big problem but methodological issue emerged immediately, not to mention the difficulty of translating from Georgian into English. When I mention methodological problem I mean that a difference between the ex-soviet and western ways of reproducing history vary a lot: the former give a long narrative stories with rich factual material; the latter makes an account of history by means of short analytical pieces. Certainly, there are many reasons why this divergence occurred but that is beyond the scope of this presentation.
The Georgian Church historians were invited to write for this volume essays covering a period between 1811 and today which resulted in a comprehensive church history book with an extensive background for general history of Georgia. Through editing the authentic voice of the authors has been kept but the text is still adjusted to the norms of a western reader.
Thus, according to the initial proposal, 5 persons were invited to write pieces on church history in the 19th and 20th century, their writings were translated into English and sent to 5 church historians in Switzerland and Germany. Then followed a seminar in Spietz, Switzerland, where the Georgian authors discussed at length their writings with their western counterparts. The discussion was very interesting, revealed a lot of variety based on the cultural differences but most of all, certainly, it exposed likeness of human mind and soul against these dissimilarities.
At the stake of the book on the Georgian church history is the issue of Autocephaly, the principle of self-governing which the orthodox church of Georgia lost under a special political circumstance in 1811. In order to clarify the above-mentioned, some earlier aspects of church history were also examined.
The present volume tells the story of the Church’s witness through extremely troubled times. It sheds light on ecclesial life over the past two centuries: since the annexation of Georgia by Russia. In order to place the events of this period into a proper context, this account is preceded by a general survey of Georgia’s long and turbulent history.
So, what is an actual composition of the book?
There is a brief introduction covering a period from the pre-Christian era to 21st century. The church history itself is divided according to the following periods: 1801- 1850s, the second half of the 19th c., then 1901-1917, the restoration of Autocephaly, and the twentieth century up to the present time.
For obvious reasons, little is known about the Georgian Orthodox Church in the 19th and 20th cc. Persecuted and oppressed, only very little information about Church life and witness could be transmitted to the outside world. According to Marxist-Leninist theory, destiny of the Church was to disappear as a historical reality. Official scholarship, therefore, held no interest in the details of its history. The Soviet ideology presented Church as an irrelevant relic of the past. In spite of difficulties and sometimes controversial existence the Orthodox Church of Georgia survived and re-emerged a couple of decades ago as the core to the Georgian nation and culture.
I will read from the editors’ introduction to the volume: “Clearly, this volume is no more than a first attempt. Both authors and editors are aware of its limitations. Fortunately, much information was used that hitherto had been inaccessible. Other details only partially known have, thanks to the industry of the authors, acquired consistency and colour. It is clear, however, that additional research must be undertaken in future. There is a wealth of information in other archives, particularly in Russia, which will undoubtedly shed new light on periods, events and persons little known today. It is our hope that this study will serve to stimulate further efforts and we very much look forward to the new insights they will reveal.”
Another serious matter- sources: Study of the most recent history of the Georgian Orthodox Church is fraught with considerable difficulties owing to the excessive paucity of archive materials for the period 1917 to 1950. During the anti-religious campaigns of the first years of Bolshevik rule, Communist Party and Komsomol activists systematically destroyed religious books and documents both in Tbilisi and in the provinces. Scholars working in this field have had to retrieve documents from widely-scattered holdings. In the early 1970s an unexplained fire broke out in the Patriarchate and destroyed most of its archives. The archives of the eparchies are lost The whereabouts of the Minutes of the Catholicosate Council are unclear. While the Patriarchal archives are closed, the personal archives of previous patriarchs kept in the Institute of Manuscripts, can be consulted. The records of the Communist Party are now kept in the President’s Central State Archive.
When reading this book or making a judgement upon it there is one important fact to be taken seriously into consideration (which is implicated in the above read quote from the introduction): formation undertaken by the distinguished authors of the book provided a strong defensive understanding of history of one’s own country which, in the course of history, happened to be surrounded by unlike-minded neighbours and suffered under totalitarian regime. In other words, the foremost attitude taken for granted in the essays is that the country and the people were victimised throughout the history and wider geopolitical questions are not sufficiently addressed. The editors tried to redress this aspect without distorting the original but editorial effort was not enough to fulfil such shortcomings.
A struggle to survive physically and preserve own identity in combination with a healthy curiosity for the outside world has been characteristic to the ethnic groups of the Georgian origin. The best of its history shows that the Georgians had been inclined towards critical reception of the major historical trends, this is true especially about the Byzantine Commonwealth.
Serious existential problems in the life of the country emerged after weakening of the Byzantine Empire, especially after the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453. Serious threats were identified again later in history, through the Russian Empire and Communist ideology. However, it should also be pointed out that independence acquired in our times, towards the end of the 20th c. is a phenomenon of its own nature, not to mention the character of implanted systems such as democracy. Like exotic fruits implanted into a new soil need special attention and care so are these systems. Let us hope that it will come true.

Autocephaly was one of the issues that dominated the history of the Orthodox Church of Georgia. Following the Russian Empire’s annexation of Georgia, the independent status of the country’s Orthodox Christian Church was abolished little by little until it became an exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church. As the movement towards independence expanded in Georgia, the hope for a restoration of self-rule became a central issue for both Church and nation. In order to understand the significance of the recurring debates throughout the 19th –20th centuries, some general knowledge of the underlying issues is necessary.
‘Autocephalous’ is a Greek word (deriving from auto- self and kephalos- head) meaning ‘oneself at the head’ and indicating an independent Church. The precise meaning of it in the church context has been a matter of change. In the early stage of Church history, bishops with governing rights resided in the main cities of provinces (eparchies in Greek) and metropolises. For this reason they were often called ‘metropolitans’. From the 4th century the number of such ‘autocephalous’ bishops gradually diminished and metropolitans and bishops became subordinated to senior bishops in the capital cities.
Currently, the autocephaly for a Church means its full and unconditional independence in domestic and foreign affairs, administrative and judicial matters, the local production of Holy Chrism, the canonisation of its own saints by the local Synod, the inscription in the diptychs of the Head of the Church together with the Heads of the other autocephalous Orthodox Churches and, above all, the election and enthronement of the Head and of all hierarchs without interference from any other Church. In middle ages, however, the term ‘autocephaly’ did not necessarily imply complete self-rule; full autocephaly was a privilege of only the five Patriarchates (so called the Pentarchy). These were the Patriarch of the West or the Bishop of Rome, the Patriarch of Constantinople, and the Patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem.
New autocephalous Churches began to emerge at a later time. To grant autocephaly to a part of one's own Church, or to a new Church, was a complicated process. The so-called ‘Mother Churches’ granted autocephalous rights to territories under their jurisdiction. In this way, different peoples could establish their own independent national Churches under local ecclesiastic governance.
The autocephalous status of the Orthodox Church of Georgia was linked to the Patriarchate of Antioch. In the first half of the fourth century, when Christianity was declared to be the official religion of the Roman Empire and the earliest ecclesiastic structures were created, Kartli (Iberia) was already an independent state. A newly-formed Church in Kartli had begun its life under the aegis of the Mother Church of Antioch: the Antiochian Bishop Eustathius is believed to have ordained the first bishop of Kartli. Hence, from the very moment of its emergence, the Church in Kartli fell under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of the Great City of Antioch and of All the East. At the outset, the bishops of Kartli were consecrated in Antioch and sent to Mtskheta (the capital of Kartli). This situation continued until the 480s, when ecclesiastic structures were reorganised at the initiative of the King of Kartli Vakhtang Gorgasali.
The new developments did not mean that the Church in Kartli maintained complete independence from that of Antioch; rather, it continued to have obligations to the Mother Church. There were changes in the church structure in the 8th c. and then in the 9th c.and the situation changed entirely in the first half of the 11th century when all of the Georgian kingdoms and principalities were united into a single state. The Catholicos of Mtskheta (Kartli) spread his jurisdiction over Western Georgia (until the 9th century it had been under the control of Byzantium) and named Patriarch. The name Melchisedek I (1010-1033) is mentioned in the sources as the first Catholicos to be made ‘Patriarch’. Since that time the head of the Orthodox Church of Georgia has been known as ‘Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia’ and the Church has been completely independent in its domestic and foreign affairs.
Opinions diverge about the status of the Georgian Orthodox Church between the 5th and 10th centuries. It was variously considered to be ‘independent’, ‘semi-independent’, ‘autonomous’ or dependent upon Antioch. Indeed, its partial dependence on the Church of Antioch both from the time of Vakhtang Gorgasali and in the 8th century suggests a state of ‘autonomy’ or ‘semi-independence’ rather than autocephaly. However, the real issue at stake is: What was actually meant at that time for a Church to be deemed "autocephalous"? In spite of the fact that the term ‘autocephaly’ has always been understood as a principle of self-government for a local Church, the practical application of that principle differed in the first centuries of Christianity from that in the Byzantine era and again from the present time.
In 1811, after the Russian Empire annexed the Kartl-Kakheti and Imereti Kingdoms, the Orthodox Church of Georgia’s autocephaly was dissolved. It was made subject illegally and in violation of eighth canon of the Third Ecumenical Council (Ephesus 431, Nestorianism) to the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church.
In March 1917, after over a hundred years’ subordination to the Russian Synod, the Georgian hierarchs convoked an assembly of ecclesiastic and secular figures and restored the autocephaly of the Georgian Church. However, the Russian Patriarchate did not recognise this restored autocephaly until 1943. For its part, the Ecumenical Patriarchate did not recognise it until 1990. On 23 January 1990, the Synod of the Church of Constantinople made a decision to recognise the ancient autocephaly of the Georgian Church and to rank its Head as Catholicos-Patriarch of the Church of Georgia.
LET US HAVE A LOOK AT LIST OF EVENTS
What happened at annexation of Kartl-Kakheti in 1801?
By virtue of the Manifesto of the Russian Emperor Alexander I, dated September 12, 1801, the Kartl-Kakhetian Kingdom (Eastern Georgia) was abolished and Georgia became a part of Russia having only the rights of a province. Russian troops entered the capital of Eastern Georgia, Tbilisi, carrying before them the Cross of St Nino – one of the most important relics and holy items of the Georgian Church. This cross, made from vine stalks and held together by the hair of St Nino, the enlightener of Georgia, was a major symbol of the Christianization of Georgia and throughout centuries had been kept at Mtskheta Svetitskhoveli Cathedral. (At present it is kept in Sioni Cathedral, Tbilisi). There is an interesting pre-historyt the cross of ST.Nino. In 1723, during the joint raid on Georgia by Turks and Lezgins, the cross was transferred for safe-keeping to the Ananuri Church in the mountainous region of North-Western Georgia. From there it was taken to Moscow by Bishop Timothy Gabashvili at the request of Prince Bakar Bagrationi. In 1801, Bakar’s grandson, Giorgi, passed it over to Emperor Alexander I. Having signed the Manifesto of September 12 in that year, the Emperor found it necessary to return the cross to Georgia. In bearing the cross at its head, the Russian army showed the Georgian population that Russian rule and sovereignty over their country was an act of protection and of God’s mercy. Indeed, many people, among them hierarchs of the Georgian Church, interpreted the entry of the Russian army precisely in this manner. It was their hope that the misfortunes of the Georgian people would come to end and that the land would revive under the patronage of Russia. Archbishop Ambrosi of Nekresi, a famous preacher, addressed his flock in this way:
Our enemies will be crushed by His Majesty’s power and we shall be forever saved from the Moslem yoke. Georgia will be delivered from the bonds of hell. Do not weep; do not grieve; for Georgia is saved and our enemies – the Persians have fallen.
However, not everyone shared the same opinion. Many realised that Georgia’s independence had come to an end and that a time of unknown dependence had arrived.
Immediately after the abolition of the Georgian state, the new civil authorities began to interfere into the affairs of the Church, which maintained its autocephalous status until 1811.

The administrative system of the Church in the Russian Empire differed fundamentally from that of the Church in Georgia. Following the reforms of the Emperor Peter I (1689-1725), the Patriarchal seat was abolished in 1721 and collegial management was introduced through a Governmental Synod which, since 1722, had been led by a layman – the Over-procurator. In 1784, Empress Catherine II subordinated the Church to the state apparatus even on a larger scale than it had been before. Under her rule all Church and monastic property was confiscated. As a result the state inherited thousands of peasants and vast estates. Similar changes were meant to take place in Georgia.
The Georgian Church, on the other hand, resembled a large-scale feudal organization. It owned large lands and pastures, forests, mills, fishing areas, candle factories and other property, which gave it a significant independence. Besides, the secular authorities almost never interfered in the management of the Church; it was the Patriarch who controlled all affairs at his own discretion.
While it is true that the first Commander-in-Chief of Eastern Georgia, General Karl Knorring, did not have time to do anything of substance with respect to Church affairs during his rule, he did write to Catholicos-Patriarch Anthony II in fulfilment of the Emperor’s will as early as February, 1801, that is before the total abolition of the Georgian Kingdom. General Knorring asked Catholicos Anthony II to describe the current state of affairs in the church life and posed a number of questions.
From this questionnaire it is clear that Russia, in requiring such detailed information, had serious intentions. Catholicos-Patriarch Anthony II himself passed on to Knorring the answers to the above stated questions together with a short outline of the past history of the Georgian Church.
By the time of Russia’s annexation of Eastern Georgia, it administered only 15 eparchies. The head of the Church hierarchy, the Catholicos-Patriarch Anthony II, turned out to be the last Georgian Patriarch of the 19th century.

From the very beginning it became quite evident that the Russian authorities were interested in Georgian Church affairs. With the signing in 1783 of the treaty between Russia and the Kartl-Kakhetian Kingdom, Georgian political figures and diplomats themselves gave grounds for Russia to behave in this way. Article 8 of this treaty affirmed:
For the management of the Georgian Church and for its attitude to the Russian Synod a separate article will be worked out;
but this never occurred. Violating the terms of the Treaty and abolishing the Kartl-Kakhetian Kingdom, the Russian government intended to behave in the same way with the Georgian Orthodox Church. Neither was there any secrecy over the issue. In 1800, Emperor Pavel I wrote:
I want Georgia to be a province, so bring it directly into contact with the Senate; but with respect to religion – with the Synod.
More active steps in reorganizing the structure of the Orthodox Church of Georgia were undertaken by the Russian administration during the time of General Alexander Toramasov’s rule in the country (1808-1811).
In November 1809 Catholicos-Patriarch Anthony II (1762-1827) was summoned to the Russian Synod in order to discuss Georgian Church affairs. The Patriarch accepted the invitation but tried to delay his departure as much as possible on the grounds of poor health. He seemed to have sensed that he would never come back to Georgia, and his foreboding was not unfounded. By that time almost all members of the royal Bagrationi family had been exiled to different provinces of Russia though the Patriarch remained in Georgia.

On June 10, 1811 twenty days before the adoption of a new managerial order for the Georgian Church, Anthony received a letter from Emperor Alexander I:
Following the incorporation of Georgia into Russia, the Georgian Church should also naturally come under the authority of the Holy Synod. It would be incompatible with the new administration to retain the post of Catholicos. No doubt, having foreseen all of this, you addressed me with the request to settle your future and retain the title you have borne for so long. In paying respect to the reasons, I graciously discharge you from overseeing the affairs of the Georgian Church, yet charging you with the titles of a member of the Holy Synod and Catholicos. You will retain all of the privileges in the holy services that you held have until now and will be addressed as ‘Your Beatitude’.
Moreover, the Emperor assigned the Catholicos an annual pension of ten thousand silver roubles. At the same time, Anthony was given the Award of the Holy Apostle Andrew.
On the list of events following the removal of Catholicos-Patriarch.
One of the main objectives of Church reform in Georgia was to transform the Church’s economic life by confiscating its property. The principal method used was to convert Church noblemen and Church peasants into state noblemen and state peasants and to substitute tax in kind with a monetary excise.
The Restoration of Autocephaly
Political changes taking place in Russia in 1917 offered new hope to those who supported the restoration of autocephaly. On March 8, 1917, a secret meeting was held in St Darya Monastery (today the Monastery of the Transfiguration) in Tbilisi to prepare the ground. It was attended not only by Church people but also by political figures who had a vital interest in the ‘independence’ of the Georgian Church. Besides Bishop Anton Giorgadze and Archpriest Nikita Talakvadze, Noé Zhordania, Alexander Lomtatidze and Ipolite Vartagava were also present. Zhordania urged Church representatives to take advantage of the precarious situation in the Russian empire and to declare the autocephaly of the Georgian Church without delay. The participants agreed to draft a text to be read at a ceremony in the Svetitskhoveli Cathedral in Mtskheta and sent telegrams to all provinces inviting priests to attend a ‘special service’ on March 12 for the ‘preservation of peace in the country’. Many people, understanding that something extraordinary was about to happen, travelled to the ancient Iberian capital.
An enormous crowd gathered on March 12/25, 1917 in the Cathedral. At noon, Leonidé, then Bishop of Guria-Odishi, surrounded by other concelebrating hierarchs, ascended the pulpit and read out the following declaration, written on special paper:

1. As from March 12/25, 1917 the autocephaly of the Church of Georgia is restored;
2. Leonidé, Bishop of Guria-Odishi is appointed temporary administrator of the Church until such time as the election of a Patriarch-Catholicos takes place;
3. A Provisional Executive Committee comprising both ecclesiastical and secular figures will supervise the Georgian Church.
The people reacted to this news with great rejoicing.
The day following the celebration, Bishop Leonidé, on behalf of the Provisional Executive Committee, went to the former palace of the Viceroy. There he met B. Khatisov, representative of the Chairman of the Extraordinary Transcaucasian Committee, and handed him a copy of the Act of Autocephaly. The reaction of the latter’s Committee, and also of the Interim Government in Russia, was clearly negative.
On March 14, the members of the Executive Committee proceeded to the erstwhile Exarch of Georgia, Platon Rozhdestvenski, to declare that, by virtue of the Act of Autocephaly, he must relinquish his post. The Exarch listened carefully and informed the Georgian hierarchs that he would wire to the Holy Synod in St Petersburg about developments in Georgia and act in accordance with instructions received. At the same time, he warned the delegation that it would not serve the interests of the Georgian Church to expel him forcefully and reminded them that he could count on the support of the Russian government and army.
Both ecclesiastical and secular authorities in Russia sought to boycott the restoration of autocephaly.

However, it is important to note that the question of autocephaly for the Orthodox Church of Georgia was on the agenda of the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church from the very beginning. However, various factors delayed the convening of the local council, among them was the diligent preparation of a long list of matters to be discussed. As it turned out, the council commenced on August 15, 1917 by which time the Orthodox Church of Georgia had already re-proclaimed its autocephaly and elected a new Catholicos-Patriarch as its primate. Hence, the issue to be taken into consideration by the Local Council has changed the focus. Now the ecclesiological question turned out to be the following: how would the Russian Orthodox Church react to a newly emerged autocephaly? The matter was taken very seriously by some of the participants. Towards the end of the Council it was decided that the issue of the autocephaly of Georgia was important and had a great significance for the Russian Orthodox Church; therefore no decisions or resolutions should have been made by the Council without special preparation.
The Interim Government in Russia sent an official telegram congratulating the Georgian Church on the restoration of its autocephaly but indicated that Russia understood this autocephaly not to be ‘territorial’ but rather ‘ethnic’. In other words, the Patriarchate of Georgia would not oversee all of Georgia but only the Georgian parishes on its territory. The Catholicos-Patriarch would be in charge of the Georgians but the Russian Exarch would retain jurisdiction over all non-Georgian Orthodox Christians in Georgia and the whole of the Caucasus. Accordingly, Rozhdestvenski was newly declared as Metropolitan of Tbilisi and Exarch of the Caucasus. In order to affirm his authority, he attempted to create division among the Georgian clergy, refused to leave his palace, and authorised the convening of several meetings.
At its meeting of March 29, 1917, the Provisional Executive Committee of the Autocephalous Church of Georgia issued an official protest against the position of the Russian ecclesiastical and secular authorities, making it clear that the Georgian nation would never agree to the notion of an ‘ethnic’ autocephaly. There was no basis for national autocephaly in tradition and, historically speaking, the autocephaly of the Georgian Church had always been territorial. To impose this kind of autocephaly would inevitably lead to religious and ethnic conflict.
On August 13, 1917, the decision was taken to restore the Eparchy of Tbilisi and both a date and an agenda for the first Council were set. Exarch Platon left Tbilisi on August 23 and the Provisional Executive Committee, led by Leonidé, the locum-tenens of the patriarchal throne, moved into the palace.

The First Church Assembly, September 1917
PHOTO OF CHURCH COUNCIL 17 SEPTEMBER 1917
More than 430 delegates participated in the First Council of the Church of Georgia, held in Mtskheta from September 8 to 17, 1917. On the last day, the Assembly elected a Catholicos-Patriarch. Of the two candidates proposed, Bishop Leonidé and Bishop Kirion, the Assembly chose the latter, Bishop Kirion Sadzaglishvili, a respected Churchman and a historian. His official title ‘His Holiness and Beatutude Kirion II, Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia’ was conferred and his enthronement as Catholicos took place on October 1, 1917 in the Svetitskhoveli Cathedral.
The Assembly engaged in extensive discussions on the future ordering of the Georgian Church. It decided to establish thirteen eparchies and to adopt highly democratic regulations for ecclesial administration. The highest authority of the Church was the Church Assembly, whereas between Assemblies the Council of the Catholicosate, comprising twelve members and chaired by the Catholicos-Patriarch, maintained control. In addition to the Patriarch, the Council included two bishops, three archpriests and six laypersons, among whom also were women. While members of the Council changed every three months, new laypersons were elected every six months. Prominent figures such Eqvtime Takaishvili, Ivane Javakhishvili, Mose Janashvili and Pavle Ingorokva spent time serving on the Council. For decisions to be valid, at least eight members needed to be in attendance. The Catholicos-Patriarch, who had two votes, was also the Chairman of the Catholicos Court, which consisted of canon law specialists and dealt with the Church’s legal issues. Eparchial councils and courts, chaired by the hierarchs of each eparchy, were set up to deal with issues affecting the local Churches.
Immediately after the restoration of autocephaly, the Georgian Orthodox Church began to assume an active role in the political life of the country. The independence of the Church had preceded the independence of the state, which occurred on May 28, 1917 with the signing of the Act of Independence. The Council of the Catholicosate met on this very day and declared its full support for the initiative.
From that day forward, Independence Day has been remembered every year by the Church of Georgia.

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